The Miscellany News | Feb 25.

The Miscellany News Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

February 25, 2010

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CXLIII | Issue 16

CSS to measure sustainability of Vassar buildings Jillian Scharr News Editor Aashim Usgaonkar Reporter

L

“We want the event to be one where the President is sitting next to a student, who’s sitting next to a staff member—all in the same room cheering for the same College.”

—Brian

Farkas, VSA VP For Operations

Caitlin Clevenger

S

Assistant News Editor

ports, academics and philanthropy will combine tonight at 6:30 p.m., as Vassar’s students and faculty members face off in a game of basketball. The proceeds from this first-ever Faculty-

A student smoker reaches for his pack of cigarettes. The Drugs and Alcohol Education Committee recently made a recommendation to the Committee on College Life that Vassar gradually unify and enforce its current smoking policies. The recommendation will be discussed in March.

Vassar considers smoking ban Molly Turpin Senior Editor

A

fter a request from the Committee on College Life (CCL), the Drugs and Alcohol Education Committee (DEC) has created a recommendation for ways to phase out or significantly reduce the areas where smoking is allowed on campus. “We were tasked

by the CCL to look into smoking on campus and to make recommendations based on current trends and what our surveys have said,” said Head Athletics Trainer and Chair of the DEC Jeffrey Carter.

“It is premature to discuss what if scenarios at this point, but they are questions that will have to be

addressed,” wrote Associate Director of Security and member of DEC Kim Squillace in an e-mailed statement.

The first phase of the plan includes an update and unification of College smoking policies across campus. Currently, Section 23 of College Regulations states, “Smoking is forbidden in all buildings

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Faculty-student basketball game to help fund Gift

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

ast spring, the College Committee on Sustainability (CCS) oversaw a greenhouse gas inventory for Vassar College. The study found that the College’s carbon footprint in 2008 was 27,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. This is below average compared to colleges of similar size and location, according to Professor of Earth Science and Chair of CCS Jeffrey Walker. Further, the College has “had a 15 percent decrease in carbon emissions over the last four years,” said Walker. Today the Committee, along with certain faculty members, is considering how to involve students in the process of

measuring the College’s emmissions themselves. The method that was employed to conduct the study is quite straight forward, said Walker. “Basically, we do a carbon footprint by measuring or by calculating it from the utility cost,” said Walker, providing the example of “[calculating] how much heat oil or natural gas we burn to heat all the buildings on campus.”

Other measures that were used include the fuel used by field work cars, students’ travel costs on Study Away programs and faculty members’ transportation costs.

The College can calculate its carbon footprint as far back as 1996, said Walker, so emissions reductions goals, See CSS on page 3

Student Basketball Game will benefit the Class of 2010 Senior Class Gift, an endowed scholarship fund to support Vassar’s need-blind financial aid policy.

The Senior Class Gift Committee hopes to raise See BASKETBALL on page 4

On Tuesday, Feb. 23, students trudge through the snow on their way to the South Atrium of the College Center. Although heavy snow blanketed the campus, classes remained in session.

Snow closures at Vassar Elizabeth Jordan Online Editor

W

Image courtesy of Ed Pittman

Associate Dean of the College Ed Pittman ’82 shoots the ball at a basketball game during his time as an undergraduate at Vassar.

Inside this issue

5

FEATURES

A new view of the sky: A night in the 1951 Observatory

ith spring on its way, snow days might seem to be a thing of this semester’s past, but the snowfall that began Monday night promises not to let up until the weekend.

But in light of this winter’s heavy snowfall and its impact on the Vassar campus, some students and administrators have begun to question Vassar’s snow day policy. On “snow days” students frequently wake

5

FEATURES

up to the realization that they must attend all classes, but cannot access the post office or bookstore, meet with certain administrators or use the Athletic and Fitness Center on days when weather requires the College to close.

In a memorandum addressed to all members of the Vassar community, Associate Vice President of Human Resources Ruth Spencer wrote that “in the event of difficult travel conditions, the College

A look into Vassar’s choice to use units and not credits

may delay the opening of administrative offices or close early, while maintaining necessary services for students in residence.”

Although dining centers and other basic facilities remain open during periods of inclement weather, many students question how the College can be closed while classes remain in session.

Closing the College means that all members of the community who are See SNOW on page 8

15 ARTS

on campus and within fifty feet of all building entrances.

Additionally, smoking is forbidden on the College Center Circle and Patio.” Students caught smoking in these areas first receive a warning and then a $25 fine per incident.

However, Carter noted that many buildings and offices See SMOKING on page 3

Faculty to vote on proposal at next meeting Final vote on Athletics proposal delayed to next faculty meeting given that it constitutes a major policy change, says Hill Matthew Brock

T

News Editor

he Athletics and Physical Education Department’s proposal to give students academic credit for varsity sports is one step closer to passing after the issue was brought before faculty members on Feb. 17.

Because President Catharine Bond Hill ruled that this proposal constitutes a major policy change, it cannot come to a vote until the next faculty meeting on Mar. 24, where it will need a majority vote to pass.

At the meeting, faculty members raised multiple concerns over the implications of passing such a proposal. “Some issues had to do with scheduling,” explained Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette. “What does this proposal say about priority? Traditionally, normal courses receive priority,” Chenette continued.

See PROPOSAL on page 4

VRDT hosts 28th annual Bardavon Gala

Page 2

The Miscellany News

February 25, 2010

Editor in Chief Ruby Cramer Senior Editor Molly Turpin

Contributing Editors Caitlin Halasz Chloe McConnell Elizabeth Pacheco

Eric Estes/The Miscellany News

Photo of theWeek: Snow gently envelops the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Tuesday, Feb. 23. The snow is expected to continue falling until Saturday.

Editorial | Faculty must vote in favor of athletics proposal Earlier this month, the Committee on Curricular Policy (CCP) voted to forward a proposal for approval to the faculty that would allow athletes to obtain half an academic credit for their participation in a varsity-level sport.

The proposal—which has been a project of the Vassar Student Association (VSA) and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) for two years—had passed as a resolution at the first VSA Council meeting of the academic year, before it traveled to the Athletics and Physical Education Department for revisions and an endorsement. An upcoming faculty vote will determine the future of this credit proposal.

We at The Miscellany News stand behind VSA and the Athletics Department in their approval of the proposal for varsity athletic credit and urge faculty members to consider the benefits of such credit on the academic welfare of Vassar’s student athletes.

As it stands, varsity sports remain the College’s only faculty-supervised activity that does not receive academic credit. Activities of comparable commitment—such as Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre, Vassar College Orchestra and the Vassar College Choir—all award participating students with a limited amount of credit, and it is our belief that the same academic courtesy be extended to athletes.

While an endorsement of this proposal does raise the question of which extracurricular activities should receive academic credit, we maintain that due to its consistent faculty oversight, varsity athletics does fall into the appropriate category for obtaining credit. If the proposal becomes policy, varsity coaches—as employees of the Athletics Department—would ensure that involved students adhere to the credit’s requirements. Moreover, while students have questioned that similar credit be granted to VSA officers, these positions—despite their equally extensive time requirements—do not possess the same faculty oversight that would allow for such surveillance and evaluation to occur.

The proposed credit differs little from that awarded to participants in other faculty-supervised activities in that its availability is limited.

The varsity athletics credit will only be obtainable four semesters over a students’ time at

Vassar. This is equal to two units of physical education credit, the same as the maximum existing credit students can elect to take through the Athletics and Physical Education Department. Students who use all four of their varsity participation credits cannot also take courses through the Athletics and Physical Education Department. If such a credit is implemented, it is necessary that such restrictions remain in place, thus maintaining the hierarchal distinction between academic and athletic credit.

It should also be pointed out that, as it stands

“Athletics credit would not signify the College’s preference for athletes; instead, it would signify the College’s appreciation for the equal academic well-being of its students.” now, the current athletic credit situation can become problematic. How can a beginner athlete receive a half credit for his or her participation in the Fundamentals of Soccer course whereas experienced varsity soccer players receive nothing? While one may hold the assertion that Fundamentals of Soccer is itself a learning experience, we maintain that the learning process is present no matter the student’s skill level. Such equity is true in other areas of the College as well; students enrolled in General Chemistry receive the same amount of credit as those enrolled in Organic Chemistry.

On top of everything, we must remember that

varsity athletics present a considerable time commitment. It is rare to find another activity on campus—academic or extracurricular—that includes a comparable daily rigor and frequent overnight obligation. Varsity athletes regularly travel throughout the northeastern to participate in meets, games and tournaments, often gone from campus for an entire weekend at a time. Given the extent of this demand, the faculty must consider what it can do to mitigate possible academic pressures on these students.

While athletes will continue to be held to the College’s rigorous academic standards, the athletics credit could discourage a varsity athlete from unnecessarily taking on five academic credits while in their athletic season. With the proposed varsity credit, the athlete seeking to assume five courses in his or her athletic season will be checked with an overload form, thus encouraging the student to think twice about assuming such a large academic and extracurricular load.

While we concede that the establishment of this varsity credit does set a precedent as to the relationship between academics and athletics, we believe that this precedent is no different from that set by the physical education credit already offered by the College. The proposed varsity athletics credit is by no means a revolutionary change to the way the College functions; it is an extension of existing practices and an acknowledgment of the time and energy student athletes spend as well as the lessons gained from participation in a varsity-level sport. The implementation of the athletics credit would not signify the College’s preference for athletes; instead, it would signify the College’s appreciation for the equal academic well-being of its students.

—The Staff Editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 21-member Editorial Board.

EDITOR’S NOTE This issue of the Miscellany will be the last before spring break begins on Friday, March 5. The editors and reporters on the staff will resume regular publication with our 17th issue of the year, on Thursday, March 25. Please continue checking miscellanynews.com throughout the break for updates on breaking campus news and events. The editors would like to thank the community for its readership this semester and wish everyone a restful break.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

News Matthew Brock Jillian Scharr Opinions Angela Aiuto Kelly Shortridge Features Kelly Stout Arts Carrie Hojnicki Erik Lorenzsonn Sports Andy Marmer Design Eric Estes Online Elizabeth Jordan Copy Katie Cornish Lila Teeters Photography Kathleen Mehocic Managing Eliza Hartley Assistant News Assistant Opinions Assistant Sports Assistant Online Assistant Copy

Assistant Photo Crossword Editor Reporters

Columnists

Photographers

Caitlin Clevenger Joshua Rosen Mitchell Gilburne Kara Voght Katharine Austin Sammy Creath Sarah Marco Gretchen Maslin Juliana Halpert Jonathan Garfinkel Thea Ballard Matthew Bock Rachael Borné Esther Clowney Daniel Combs David Lopez Christie Musket Danielle Nedivi Alexandra Sarrigeorgiou Aashim Usgaonkar Martin Bergman Steve Keller Nate Silver Nik Trkulja Patricia Cruz Gabriel Kelly-Ramirez Jared Saunders

LETTERS POLICY The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers.

Letters to the Editor should not exceed 450 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue. Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

The Editorial Board holds weekly meetings every Sunday at 9 p.m. in the Rose Parlor. All members of the Vassar community interested in joining the newspaper’s staff or in a critique of the current issue are welcome. The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented in the Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board. The Miscellany News is published weekly by the students of Vassar College. The Miscellany News office is located in College Center Room 303, Vassar College.

NEWS

February 25, 2010

ACDC changes cashier location Jillian Scharr

F

News Editor

or students who have eaten at the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) lately, they have probably noticed that the location of the cash register has changed. Instead of cashiers seated at one or both of the desks to either side of the plasma screen TV by the entrance to the cafeteria, cashiers now sit at a table in the lobby.

Student reaction to this change seems mildly negative when it exists at all; some expressed initial confusion at the switch, or concern for longer lines due to a single cashier instead of two.

According to Senior Director of Campus Dining Maureen King, Campus Dining has been thinking for some time about trying to move the cashiers outside to the lobby.” When ACDC was renovated in the early ’90s the spaces where cashiers previously sat were built, but not used, because the meal plan changed the following semester to a pay-per-item system; cashiers sat at the exits from the main cafeteria into the dining rooms.

The switch is “just on a trial basis,” says King; “there’s a port [in the lobby] for the register so we thought, ‘Well, let’s try and see how it works.’”

“It’s all right,” said Central Dining Cashier Merrandie “Randy” Walker. Although she stated that she and the other cashiers didn’t know about the change prior to its implementation, “I like it…It’s more open. If I don’t talk to you going in, I can talk to you going out.”

Walker also pointed out that the setup made it easier for cashiers to interact with non-dining visitors to ACDC. For example, Walker recalled that a visitor to campus recently wandered into ACDC; seeing that she was confused, Walker asked if she could help her and was able to direct the visitor to her destination.

King hesitated to say that the switch was a reaction to ACDC theft. “I will say that [having] someone in the lobby deters theft,” she said, referring both to people entering ACDC without paying or swiping, and to people leaving with tableware and silverware, “which disappears at an alarming rate.”

Walker said that putting cashiers in the lobby “probably will slow [theft] down… I feel that being out there makes people less likely to try to walk in.” Previously, an ACDC employee or Security officer would often sit in the lobby in an attempt to deter theft, but moving cashiers outside kills two birds with one stone.

CSS continues campus study CSS continued from page 1 which have yet to be set, will be based on that year. Walker speculates that the College will decide on reducing its carbon footprint by 15 or 20 percent of 1996 levels by a to-be determined date, which he calls an “intermediate goal.” Eventually, said Walker, the College will reach zero net carbon dioxide production.

Although the College hired consultant Sightlines to perform the study, in the future Vassar students and faculty members will perform the greenhouse gas inventories. This will save money and provide learning opportunities, said Student Representative to CCS Sarah Gyory ’10. For example, wrote Gyory in an e-mailed statement, Professor of Economics Paul Ruud’s class Environmental and Natural Resources Economics “will be attempting to model the College’s consumption from the same data as Sightlines. They will also be receiving training for the prospective aspect of performing the analyses.”

“The CCS has also decided that in order to complete our understanding of the College’s emissions, we need to obtain an analysis for 1996 and to be able to perform annual analyses,” said Gyory.

The purpose of these analyses is to reduce the total amount of carbon output that Vassar has by identifying those parts which emit the most, and to cut from the areas where it is both most cost-effective and most influential.

“We hope to see where energy is most wasted, and to find the best, simplest fixes,” said Gyory.

“We’ve been doing well, so let’s keep it up and let’s step it up wherever we can,” said Walker.

VSA hosts forum on illegal downloading Hao Fu

L

Guest Rerporter

ast Wednesday, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) hosted a forum in Sanders Classroom’s Spitzer Auditorium to discuss the issue of illegal downloading on campus, a topic addressed in previous VSA Council meetings.

At this particular forum, three guest speakers were in attendance: Vice President for Computing and Information Services (CIS) Bret Ingerman, Dean of Students David “D.B.” Brown and Associate Professor for Networks and Systems David Susman.

The panel began with a conversation between the three speakers about whether or not the College should remove the “speed limit” for data transfer rates on individual computers on campus. “The cap on the speed of an individual is about 1.4 megabits per second,” explained Ingerman.

“I understand that this speed is generally slower than that of your computers at home.” The speed cap is designed to evenly distribute network speed and to deter students from using Vassar’s network resources to download large files.

Although CIS imposes this cap on the downloading speeds of the computers on campus, Vassar students download a substantial amount of material online each day. A majority of this information is downloaded through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like BitTorrent or Limewire, use of which is illegal under

copyright protection laws.

Peer-to-peer networks allow users to download shared files that are stored on the computers of other users, as opposed to from a central server. Ingerman pointed out that the College does not block peer-to-peer downloading, but “we know that a vast, vast majority of the downloading through peer-to-peer is illegal.”

There are, however, legal reasons to use peer-to-peer and other network resources of the College. As Ingerman mentioned in the forum, CIS assigns priority to the use of the network for academic reasons. However, the number of requests for higher speed made to CIS for academic use is almost zero.

“If we take off our speed limits, the risk of students getting caught for illegal downloading will significantly increase,” said Ingerman.

“The College has put a lot of effort into reducing such incidents,” said Ingerman.

“By this time last year, 14 students had been caught for illegal downloading; this semester, we only have four.”

“The main problem we are faced with when dealing with illegal downloading,” remarked Ingerman, “is the notion that music should be free.” He said, for example, that often, students may consider shoplifting a book to be theft, but not downloading a song without permission.

“There is nothing that can compete with the word ‘free,’” he said. “That is why this issue is hard to solve.”

Page 3

News Briefs Thin ice On Wednesday, Feb. 17, two Labrador retrievers fell through the ice at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. Their owner attempted to save them, but also fell into the water. Two nearby Buildings and Grounds employees called Emergency Services, and Emergency Services personnel, along with several Building and Grounds workers, pulled the dogs and owner to safety. All recovered fully.

—Caitlin Clevenger, Assistant News Editor

Scrapes on Sunset Two students driving in opposite directions on Sunset Lake Drive collided on the evening of Feb 19. Both cars had damage to their driver’s side, but both drivers were uninjured. ­—C.C.

The red cups are coming A Security officer on patrol on the second floor of Noyes House on Feb. 20 saw students walking around with red plastic cups. One student saw the officer, shouted “Security’s coming!” and ran away. Security found a keg of beer and confiscated it. ­—C.C.

Hazy Sunday Security responded to a carbon monoxide alarm in the Town Houses in the early morning on Feb. 21. Officers found an unauthorized party with a beer pong table and keg, but normal levels of carbon monoxide. ­—C.C.

Letters in the loo Some graffiti was found on Monday, Feb. 22 in one of the bathrooms in Main Building. Security asks that anyone with relevant information either come forward or submit it anonymously. ­—C.C.

DEC suggests unification of smoking policies SMOKING continued from page 1 only advertise a 25-foot minimum smoking distance from entrances. The DEC proposal recommends that all buildings advertise the 50 rather than 25-foot rule, generally increase signage and encourage smoking further away from buildings by moving cigarette butt containers. When these policies are made more visible, efforts to educate students about these regulations would increase.

A slightly more problematic clause in this current regulation is the imposition of warnings and fines. Though the Security Department technically has the ability to issue fines for smoking violations, according to Squillace, officers rarely mete out fines because no one is really aware of the punishments.

“Security is not currently charged with enforcing the 50 feet smoking by issuing fines; however, we will remind people they should be 50 feet from the building,” said Squillace.

Putting this part of College policy into practice would come under step two of the DEC’s proposal, and the Security Department would wait to impose fines until about six months after efforts to make rules more visible had been completed. “We suggested that if [the CCL] were going to continue with the current policy then they needed to do some education with that,” said Carter, indicating that fines would not be imposed immediately despite the fact that the policy already exists.

“Security was even a little hesitant to do that because no one really knows the rules, so that was our big thing—don’t just go from zero to 100 miles per an hour.”

“Security isn’t excited about enforcing that,” said DEC Student Representative Carson Robinson ’12. “Security is almost on the same page as the students. Enforcing policies or enforcing fines is something you do after education.”

This second phase would also encompass a more formal reduction in smoking by the designation of certain smoke-free zones, which could include the Walker Athletic Complex and Ballantine Field, the “health corridor” between Baldwin Health Center and Metcalf House, and Main Circle. After the reinstatement of fines, the College might

also designate certain areas for smoking, possibly using gazebos that could be paid for with the collected fines. This step would be similar to the smoking policy of the Culinary Institute of America, which has a smoke-free campus except for specially allocated gazebos. The Committee’s recommendation suggested that this would emphasize the social aspect of smoking and give smokers a place to go that would be somewhat protected from the elements.

The third and final step would be the establishment of Vassar as a smoke-free campus, though the decision to pursue this goal is not up to CCL. “We actually didn’t put pressure on it either way of saying this would be a good idea or a bad idea,” said Carter. “This would just be another step that the College could take.”

Though increasing awareness of College policies and reducing exposure to secondhand smoke is a definite plan, the ultimate goal of becoming a smoke-free campus is still up for consideration. “I think they’re having second thoughts about that,” said Robinson.

“It doesn’t sound possible to me personally.

That’s everyone’s ideal, and we’ll see if it remains an actual goal.”

Robinson did consider that the change would bring mixed reactions from students. “[Non-smokers] probably just don’t really care,” he said, but “for people who do smoke, yeah, it’s going to be a problem. I think there’s going to be a big reaction.”

“Some people will be very happy about it,” said Carter. “For those who do smoke, I think it will be a little bit of a headache.”

Part of the potentially varied reaction to any changes in smoking policies is a disparity between the perception of smoking’s prevalence and how many students actually smoke. “The last DEC Survey completed in 2008 and [the American College Health Association survey] completed in 2007 reported that less than three percent of Vassar College students report smoking daily, and about 20 percent have used cigarettes in the last 30 days,” wrote Director of Health Education Renee Pabst. “Students may be shocked or disagree with these statistics, but students

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

overestimate how many of their peers are engaging in tobacco use leading to misperceptions about usage.”

According to Squillace, “I have been here approximately 13 years, and in my opinion smoking has increased with our student population.”

The method of hemming in smoking on campus is also a question—whether it is preferable to reduce smoking’s prevalence through regulations or educational efforts.

“For a lot of people (a high average compared to other schools, as far as I can tell), smoking is a part of daily student life and for a lot of people it’s not. In some crowds it’s taboo to smoke and in others it’s taboo to ask people to put out their cigarettes,” wrote Irina Kaplan ’10, who is currently enrolled in the smoking cessation class. “The way to reduce smoking among students is not harsher rules, it’s adult education.”

One way that the College is already trying to increase smoking education is by offering smoking cessation classes to all members of the campus community for $5. “This is the first year that we have ever offered a smoking cessation workshop,” wrote Pabst. “I think the people who have chosen to take the class have appreciated having the class and have found it helpful.”

Because the recommendations have to be reviewed by the CCL, the timeline for the plan has not been set, and both Carter and Robinson were adamant that the College will not make the transition immediately.

“They’re not going to do anything drastic or really fast,” said Robinson.

“Our goal was to get it to them this semester so that if they decide to make any changes that they can go into effect at the beginning of next year,” said Carter. Any changes that go into effect early next year would fall under step one plans to increase awareness and align the policies of individual buildings with those outlined in the College Handbook. According to Carter, “I think the fact that they asked us for this information says that there is at least a push to make things uniform, let alone what the next step would be after that.”

NEWS February 25, 2010 Faculty to vote on proposal this March

Page 4

Image courtesy of Christopher Roellke

Dean of the College Christopher Roellke takes a jump shot in a game against Williams College during his time as a student-athlete at Wesleyan University.

Students, faculty to bring community together at tonight’s basketball game BASKETBALL continued from page 1 $2,000 from ticket sales and $1,500 in private donations, according to Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ’10, who is also co-chairs the Senior Class Gift Committee.

These proceeds will go towards the Committee’s ultimate goal of $15,000.

“Last year at this time,” said Farkas, “the senior class only raised $250, but we’ve almost reached $9,000.”

According to Farkas, the event was first conceived of as a way to reunite the members of the Vassar community following the financially difficult— and oftentimes emotionally taxing— semester that the College and its peers faced this fall. “Because of the budget cuts,” Farkas noted, “we felt a strong impact on our sense of community.”

As a way of reuniting members of the community, VSA leadership and College administrators imagined an event with “the President of the College sitting next to a student, sitting next to a worker, sitting next to a tenured professor, all in the same room cheering for the College,” said Farkas.

Basketball emerged quickly as a way to achieve that.

Beyond uniting the College and raising money for the Senior Class Gift, the Faculty-Student Basketball Game aims to be the largest sporting event in Vassar’s history. An estimated 1,000 spectators will attend the game, and those who purchase the $2 tickets will receive a pre-game dinner. “Food always seems to be a good way to attract a crowd at Vassar,” wrote Dean of the College Christopher Roellke in an e-mailed statement to The Miscellany News. Roellke, whose game-name is “Roellks,” will be one of the 18 players on the faculty team.

The food provided for the event was funded by the VSA and the Office of the Dean of the College, as well as from donations from local vendors.

Attendees will be able to sample the cuisine of Julie’s, Twisted Soul, Pizza Baccio’s and Campus Dining.

In addition, the Vassar Women’s Chorus will be singing the national anthem and the Vassar Fight Song to start the game. FlyPeople will also be performaing two dances at halftime.

Roellke summarized the entertainment in his e-mail: “Two words: extravaganza, baby!”

The main attraction, however, will be the basketball game. The outcome of the match is far from predictable as experience competes with youth.

“I tried to get a collection of faculty members that students would have had class with,” said Farkas, aiming to recruit as many highly visible professors as possible.

Men and women’s rugby Head Coach and coach of the faculty team Tony Brown, boasted a strong offense for the faculty team, writing in an emailed statement, “At guard [Professor of History] Robert Brigham will run the offense much akin to Steve Nash with support from women’s basketball [Head] Coach Candice Brown and men’s basketball [Head] Coach Del Harris. There are plenty of NBA teams who can’t boast a trio this strong!

Dean Roellke will look to dominate the boards and with great outside shooting provided by a host of faculty players coming off the bench; it’s going to be a long night for the students.”

Still, the student team is not to be underestimated, as their roster includes varsity basketball player Devon Luongo ’11, VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10, VSA Vice President for Student Life Elizabeth Anderson ’11, former varsity basketball player Emma Carmichael ’10 and a host of other familiar faces.

The VSA ordered custom uniforms for the players—with the faculty sporting maroon uniforms and the students clothed in grey-gold, because it was cheaper than pure grey—representing the Vassar school colors of rose and grey.

All of the funds raised at the event will go towards the Class of 2010 Senior Class Gift. The initial value of the gift will be maintained, while money earned will finance Vassar scholarships. “Vassar was here before we were born and will be here after we die,” said Farkas. “Giving to an endowment means that you’re really looking into the future because the dollars that you give will grow and continue to support educational access at Vassar for hundreds of years.”

The pre-game dinner will start at 6:30 p.m. in the Athletics and Fitness Center.

PROPOSAL continued from page 1 Normally, when a student has an athletic event and a class scheduled for the same time, the class takes precedence. “Coaches support that principle,” said Chenette, but “it’s hard for a faculty member to say ‘no’” when a student asks them about missing class for a game.

Should this proposal pass, some members of the faculty are worried that the half credit awarded for athletics might tip the scales and make it harder for faculty members to reject some students’ desire to prioritize athletics over academics.

However, many members of the student body respect the fact that academics need to take precedence over athletics. “I was deeply moved by a student who said ‘I came to Vassar because, although I am an athlete, being an athlete comes second to being a student,’” said Chenette.

“There is concern that if this ‘extracurricular’ activity is awarded credit, student groups in other areas will want similar recognition,” wrote Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Academics Stephanie Damon-Moore ’11 in a statement that was read before the faculty members. “However, varsity athletics are currently the only area of the College in which student performance is overseen closely by faculty members that does not already get awarded credit. Activities commonly considered extracurricular that are overseen by faculty members and already do receive credit include Drama

Department shows, voice lessons, jazz ensembles, Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre, etc. In light of this credit inequity, extending the physical education credit to varsity athletics appears to be not only logical but egalitarian.”

“Another question was raised about why we [should] award credit for physical education anyway,” said Chenette. “One argument [in favor of the proposal] is that [varsity sports are] more intense than physical education,” so it does not make sense to award academic credit for the former and not the latter.

“Personally, I think that there are compelling reasons to [award credit for physical education],” said Chenette. “Important learning goes on in physical education and dance class and music lessons, and we need to embed these forms of learning into our culture.”

“Due to [the] institutional history of recognizing the value of [physical education] courses and encouraging students to take them, it is the belief of the student body that participation on a varsity team should be considered a fulfillment of these additional two credits,” wrote Damon-Moore in the statement that was read before the faculty members. “Indeed, with all due respect to the excellent [physical education] courses offered at Vassar, students and faculty-coaches agree that varsity athletics entail a much greater time commitment and level of engagement than the

twice-weekly [physical education] classes,” she continued.

“If I were to vote, I would be in favor of the proposal,” said Chenette, although he is unsure which way the faculty will vote. “I can almost guarantee that it won’t be a unanimous vote,” he continued. “I hope that there is spirited and well-intentioned debate.”

According to Damon-Moore, at the Feb. 21 VSA Council meeting, faculty members seemed fairly evenly split on the issue.

Should faculty members vote against the proposal, the Athletics and Physical Education Department will not be able to bring it back before the full faculty this semester and likely won’t be able to do so in the future unless they include serious revisions based on the faculty members’ criticism of the policy.

Proposals such as this have been shown to function at other academic institutions. Granted, of Vassar’s seven peer institutions that do not maintain a physical education requirement like Vassar, only Oberlin College offers credit for varsity sports, but other schools that do require students to fulfill some manner of athletics requirement usually count participation in a varsity sport toward that requirement.

“As someone whose own career has been in the arts,” said Chenette, “I think that we need to think long and hard about different forms of learning…As long as there’s faculty support we owe it to ourselves [to award credit.]”

This Week in Higher Ed

by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief Former GW employee arrested for threatening University students and faculty A former George Washington University (GW) mailroom employee was arrested last week after allegedly calling “a University office and [making] threats to ‘kill faculty and students,’” reported The GW Hatchet last Monday. According to Metropolitan Police Department reports, the 53-year-old former employee—named James Ripley Markley Jr., who has not worked at the University since 1992—called a University office and “became angry after he was told that the person he asked to speak with no longer worked at the University.” An affidavit in support of Markley’s arrest warrant reports that the accused spoke with a mumbling tone, before cursing and saying that he would “[wreak] havoc on the University and kill students and faculty.” During an interview with the Hatchet following his arrest, Markley conceded that he had called a University office, but he denied making threats. “I did not say those things to GW personnel. I did not say nothing of that sort,” said Markley to the Hatchet. As a precaution, the GW University Police Department has issued a campus crime alert and increased its presence in areas where Markley had contact with faculty or staff members when employed.

Grinnell College selects new president On Wednesday, Feb. 17, Grinnell College announced that Raynard S. Kington—deputy director of the National Institutes of Health—would serve as the institution’s 13th president. Many in higher education are calling the choice a bold one, saying that— as stated in an Inside Higher Ed article—it “reflects a subtle shift going on in the presidential selection process at liberal arts colleges,” wrote Inside Higher Ed in a recent article. Kington was a unique choice for Grinnell primarily because the he was educated at research universities and has since worked exclusively at research institutions. According to Inside Higher Ed, experts say that his selection reflects an increased willingness of liberal arts colleges to appoint presidents who have never served as provosts or presidents at similar institutions. In addition, wrote Inside Higher Ed, “Kington, who is black and gay, also reflects what many see as an increased will-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ingness by many colleges to consider a more diverse pool of leaders than they might have in the past.”

High school students submit YouTube videos as part of Tufts application New York Times education correspondent Tamar Lewis reported last Monday that Tufts University is now accepting short YouTube videos from prospective students as part of their regular application. “Tufts,” writes Lewis, “is known for its quirky applications. Along with the required essays, [the University] has for years offered applicants an array of option essays—‘Are we alone?’ is one of this year’s topics—or a chance to ‘create something’ out of a sheet of paper. So it was not too far a stretch, this year, to add the option of posting a one-minute video that ‘says something about you.’” About 1,000 of Tufts’ 15,000 applicants submitted videos this fall, and, according to the Times, some have even gotten thousands of hits on YouTube.

Princeton pilots Amazon’s Kindle in classes In what Princeton University called its e-reader pilot program, three Princeton courses last semester experimented with incorporating the Kindle DX into the classroom in an attempt to save paper. According to The Daily Princetonian, the experiment reduced “the amount of paper students printed for their respective classes by nearly 50 percent.” For example, in one course, Civil Society and Public Policy, students printed an average of 762 pages, compared to the 1,373 pages printed in past years in the course. Despite saving paper and money, however, many students and professors involved in the program found the technology limiting, given restrictions with note-taking and engaging in general with the reading material. “I expected it to be a really useful tool that would enhance my experience, but it has hindered my studies in a lot of different ways,” said Eddie Skolnick, a Princeton sophomore. “I wasn’t able to absorb the material as well as if I had hard copies of the readings, and I had to deal with a lot of technical inconveniences just from the design of the Kindle.” Following a somewhat negative response to the program, the University has no current plans to officially incorporate the Kindle into its courses.

February 25, 2010

FEATURES

Page 5

The ’51 Observatory: a new view of the sky In search of the perfect A coffee shop Claire Webb

Guest Reporter

Christie Musket/The Miscellany News

nerdy confession: In elementary school, I admired Maria Mitchell—the first astronomy professor at Vassar College, an astronomy enthusiast and the discoverer of a comet—so much that I donned an 19th-century costume and played her in History Club. After taking Professor of Astronomy Debra Elmegreen’s Life in the Universe class as a doe-eyed freshman, I decided to upgrade from an eight-inch, reflecting telescope I had used to scan the skies as a kid and work at Vassar’s Class of 1951 Observatory. You might have taken a wrong turn on a running trail or gotten lost trying to find Walker Field House and stumbled upon a gray building that looks like a grain silo. In fact, the observatory is the home to the most powerful telescope in New York.

Part of my job as a laboratory assistant at the Vassar Observatory is to lead tours of the facility every Wednesday at 9 p.m.—but be sure to call ahead of time if you’re interested. A large portion of my job is to demonstrate how to use equipment in the observatory, particularly the telescope. Telescopes have come a long way technologically; scientists, perched on a basket high above the ground to monitor the instrument, used to spend eight hours freezing in pursuit of observation. (There’s an old joke that astronomers would bring up a thermos of coffee and return with the thermos full… of something else.) Students were treated like work horses and had to operate a labor-intensive, complicated pulley system to move both the dome and the telescope. Luckily, Vassar’s building boasts a convenient warm room and a computer-operated system that guides both the movement of the telescope and the rotation of the dome (although it’s still very squeaky).

I can speak from experience: After a long trek from the Town Houses, having run into a herd of deer on the pitch-dark path up to the Observatory, it’s actually quite pleasant to make oneself some coffee and open the dome. Here’s how I do it: First, I turn on the telescope, of course. I boot up the computers, open the mirror doors (which focus the light from distant stars) and discontinue the halt of the motors (which control the dome). When I open the dome, it looks a little bit like an alligator jaw biting into the night sky above. At this point it’s always a struggle not to be alarmed by the

The Class of 1951 Observatory is home to two large reflecting telescopes in separate domes. Every Wednesday, the Observatory is open for public use from 9 to 11 p.m. during the academic year. horrendous screeching noise this makes, but I always try not to fall off the ladder in surprise.

Note to self: Turn the lights back off on your way out—many times, observatory workers forget to do this and nullify all that night’s images!

Imagine you’re the laboratory assistant. In the comfort of the warm room, send the telescope to a bright star; perhaps, Deneb, a star in the constellation Cygnus if it’s summertime. As Deneb is bright, you’ll only need to take a short exposure, say one-tenth of a second, for an image. Because the telescope settles, kind of like an old house, the focus won’t always be the same.

Adjust the focus, and dither the telescope slightly in order the center the star in your picture.

Finally, you’re ready to “do” some astronomy. If you’re of Elmegreen’s school of thought, galaxies are really the only objects worthy of an astronomer’s attention. Navigate—in observational astronomy this is called “slewing”— the telescope to the Andromeda galaxy, our own Milky Way’s neighbor (although it’s still two and a half million light years away). Unlike other galaxies, which are zooming away from us as the universe expands, the Andromeda galaxy will crash into the Milky Way in two and a half billion years.

Maybe you’re itching to look at a galaxy really far away. In the summer of 2007, Vassar Undergraduate Research Summer Institute students studied the light curve of a blazar

called BL Lac, whose claim to fame is the its status as the “original blazar.” Blazars are part of an astronomical class of objects known as active galactic nuclei (AGNs), billions of light years away, that give us an interesting picture of our early universe, which began about 14 billion years ago. That means a massive black hole in the middle of an AGN blasted out bipolar twin jets of charged particles near the speed of light; billions of years later, the photons from this spectacular event reach Vassar’s telescope and your eye if we aim it just so.

You could also track the very reliable pulsars, the ghosts of a massive star after its death. Pulsars emit jets of electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals. After being discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967, these astronomical objects, because of their alarmingly reliable emissions, incited a frenzy of alien hunters and dreams of little green men sending signals to Earth.

If you go to the observatory in the winter, at about 7 p.m., Jupiter is spectacular, surrounded by a pretty host of its four main moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. All discovered

by Galileo in 1610, you can see them the way he did 400 years later in breathtaking clarity. Jupiter’s giant red spot—a gigantic, churning storm three times the size of Earth’s diameter—is also visible, and appears misleadingly calm and majestic. Push the telescope to Saturn, another See OBSERVATORY on page 8

Why Vassar chose ‘units’ over credit hours Danielle Gensburg

V

Guest Reporter

assar College veers away from many of its peer institutions in the awarding of academic credit by using the “course unit” to measure academic course credit rather than the credit hour. In order to fulfill the requirements of a bachelor’s degree, Vassar students are required to complete a minimum of 34 units of class work, which translates into approximately 120 semester hours of credit in a more traditional system. As a general rule, one-semester courses are worth one unit of credit, and courses taken for half of the semester, classes that meet less regularly than most classes and a few other exceptions—such as classes offered through the Athletics and Physical Education Department and Department of Dance—earn the student a half unit of credit. For courses that run for the entire academic year, the College awards students two credits, conferring one credit per semester.

Some accelerated courses, such as intensive language classes, also prove to be an exception to the general rule and receive one and a half units per semester. This system—which in its most basic form allots one unit of credit per semester course, regardless of difficulty, hours in class and subject matter­­­­—makes Vassar relatively unique in its credit system.

According to Registrar Dan Giannini, “The rationale behind such a system is to try to send the message that all courses are equal in worth and that one shouldn’t try to distinguish between courses based on time spent in or out of class.” Giannini noted that Vassar used to measure courses based on a credit hour system tied loosely to contact hours of profes-

sors, but changed to the current course unit system in 1969 because most faculty members felt that each course “should be thought of as a full and equal experience.” Ultimately, the purpose of such a system is to send the message about curriculum that one area of the academic curriculum is worth no more than another. At Vassar, all courses, regardless of concentration, subject matter or department, are equal in intellectual value.

Before coming to Vassar in 2008, Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette was an associate dean and a professor of music at Grinnell College. Grinnell College, operating in a system similar to that of many colleges and universities, bases course credit on the number of hours that a course meets as well as its difficulty. Chenette said, “To recognize that different courses have different loads, to capture nuances of workload in precise measures of units, is futile.” In fact, when it comes to credit hours per course, Chenette believes comparisons are ultimately relative. Courses are perceived differently in terms of difficulty depending on the opinions and experiences of individual students and faculty members.

According to Chenette, “Who’s to say that someone spending additional hours in a lab is working harder than someone spending three hours in an English seminar, with many books to read and papers to write? When you credit most courses with one unit, you treat them as being essentially equal, even though workloads can vary considerably.”

Regardless of these egalitarian ideas, Vassar’s system is not without its dissenters. Recently, there has been significant discussion in both the Vassar Student Association (VSA) and the

Committee on Curricular Policies (CCP) concerning the allotment of course credit to lab sciences and varsity athletics—an extra half credit in the case of lab sciences and a halfunit physical education credit for varsity athletes. Giannini, commenting on the issue, said, “Whether there should be additional credit for lab courses or for other activities such as varsity athletics is partly the reason that Vassar went to this one unit per course system, to reduce these types of disputes.”

Emil Ostrovski ’12, though not against the idea of allowing course credit for varsity athletics, asked, “Once we start giving credit for extracurriculars, where do we draw the line?

Will it stop at varsity athletics or, better yet, should it?” By permitting students to receive credit for their varsity athletics, even if only half a credit, some argue that it may prompt individuals involved in other extracurricular activities, such as The Miscellany News or the VSA, to consider obtaining credit for their own time commitments.

In agreement with Giannini, Ostrovski expressed his approval of Vassar’s one-unit-percourse system: “I think a one-credit system that leaves room for a few exceptions is the most sensible way to approach credit for courses.

The rationale behind it is the most straightforward. All academic disciplines are equal, and each course can potentially contribute as much to our intellectual development as any other course.” According to Giannini, this is a real concern in that when courses are evaluated based on perceived difficulty, subject matter or number of hours, there are problems that arise concerning how much credit variation should be allotted between courses.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Daniel Combs Reporter

C

offee houses are weird and, to some, weirdly wonderful. This article is not about coffee as much as it’s about this particular American phenomenon. The coffee house is a tricky gustatory medium because evaluation of the house atmosphere is subjective and depends far more on who is drinking than the setting of consumption. All I can say is that this past Sunday I found myself in the mood for adventure.

A Sunday afternoon has never felt so offkilter for me, and I think I can attribute this to a strange quest that seems without end: What’s the right atmosphere for the American coffee shop?

I also feel that it is my duty to tell you that as I type this, I am drinking coffee on my way to New York City. When I get there, my goal is to have lunch at Motorino, a pizza place on 1st Avenue that I’ve had my eye on for months. This same place, believe it or not, just received a star from Sam Sifton of The New York Times. A pizza place getting a star from the Times is huge, and I fully expect to have to bulldoze my way through a mob of leisure-suit wearing sycophants to dig into my Brussels sprout, mozzarella and pancetta pizza. Maybe I should postpone the rest of this article and just talk about how damn good I know this pizza is going to be. But I’ll save that for another week.

Where was I? The atmosphere of the coffee shop, right. Sometimes, instead of splashing it into a paper cup and running to class with scalding liquid searing your hand and staining your shirt (me on a Monday), it’s nice to sit down and remember that it’s occasionally acceptable to act like a semi-civilized human being. Anyone that has ever been lucky enough to have visited a real live Parisian café can recall with a glazed look the simple indulgence of sipping a hot cappuccino and people watching like a proper flaneur. However you feel about France, the simple truth is that the American coffee house is modeled after the French café (which is a little incongruous if you think about it, considering the fact that coffee comes from the Americas, and the Euro-folk only ever got it once the Spanish gunned their way through this hemisphere).

A note regarding my own coffee preferences: I am not any kind of bean purist. I doubt I could adequately describe the difference between good coffee and great coffee. I never shell out the big bucks for the primo beans. All I know is that I can tell a serious difference between coffee that I can drink and coffee that I can’t put anywhere near my mouth. But I’m not exactly critiquing coffee itself today. No, my sights are set a little higher: on the ever-elusive coffee house atmosphere.

The question is where to enjoy with leisure this liquid that so many of us guzzle like an 18-wheeler sucking down gasoline.

We all know that the Vassar student enjoys his or her latte at Raymond Avenue’s Cubbyhole or Crafted Kup. There is a notable difference between the two coffee houses: The moods and settings are decidedly polarized between the two. The Cubbyhole offers what might best be called a dimlylit lounge setting, designed for people who want to spend a long time comfortably sipping out of oversized mugs. Conversely, the Crafted Kup offers a brighter, crisper atmosphere, like a stream of light breaking its way through your window in the morning.

The Crafted Kup always makes me want to open my eyes as wide as possible and take a deep breath of the bracing morning air. But then again, I hate feeling that cheery.

I don’t want to seem prejudiced toward or against either of these businesses. My general attitude towards both of them is something between “meh” and “mmmeeehhhhh…”

See COFFEE on page 8

FEATURES

Page 6

February 25, 2010

Project Eye-to-Eye brings kids and mentors together Chloe McConnell

A

Image courtesy of Daniel Ming

Daniel Ming ’10 travels in Tel Aviv during his time in Israel. Ming will incorporate his dance experience with his peace and conflict studies major by creating a thesis involving performance art.

Daniel Ming tells stories across media, continents Kelly Stout

D

Features Editor

aniel Ming ’10 speaks like a dancer. He is calm and graceful, measured and lyrical as he describes his summer and semester in Jordan and Palestine, respectively. It’s amazing that he is so calm, really, considering that has not one, but two projects looming in the immediate future. This weekend, Ming’s dance piece entitled “Oh!” goes up at the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre’s annual performance at Poughkeepsie’s Bardavon Opera House and the thesis project for his independent peace and conflict studies major is due in early May. At first pass, Ming doesn’t seem like an impulsive person, so his decision to temporarily withdraw from Vassar when the study abroad program he signed up for in Jordan turned out to be too limiting for his tastes is a surprising one. In 2008, Ming was the recipient of a Tannenbaum Peace Fellowship and spent the summer after his sophomore year working with a Jordanian Catholic priest who develops interfaith relationships between Muslim and Christian communities in the country. During his time in Jordan, Ming took time off to visit the West Bank where he toured the area with an anti-occupation group called Stop the Wall.

Ming’s visit to the West Bank brought him to a village outside the city of Nablus, a territory in the occupied West Bank. He describes the community as “under siege” from an Israeli settlement that “sort of looms over this Palestinian village.” A few weeks prior to Ming’s visit to the village, a male Palestinian teenager had been shot dead by Israeli Defense Forces, bringing harsh immediacy to the narrative of daily life in a conflict zone.

The young boy’s death illuminated “a side of Palestine” that Ming found he couldn’t abandon, and decided only two weeks before the beginning of his program in Jordan to remain in the West Bank for the fall semester to intern with a Jerusalem-based academic publication called the Palestine-Israel Journal.

He participated in the annual Palestinian olive harvest, a little known West Bank activity that is—perhaps somewhat predictably—fraught with conflict and violence over land use.

In his quiet way, Ming has become obsessed with the West Bank and how to narrate the peace and conflict he encountered there.

It might be fair to call his study of peace and conflict a study of story as well. How does one begin to tell a story that doesn’t condense into categories and resists abstractions when you’re standing in the middle of an olive grove? Says Ming, “I really want to be a journalist,” and he’s well on his way. Ming is the recipient of an honorable mention for the 2009 Elie Wiesel Essay in Ethics Prize and has published in the Paris-based French language

publication L’Express.

Blogging “became a huge part” of his time in occupied Israel, and he used the medium to glimpse the “very warped version of life” that is “living under an occupation.” Ming continued to blog (danielming.wordpress.com) upon his unexpected January 2009 return to Vassar after war broke out in Gaza. Indeed, his most recent post is a recounting of how Ming first heard the story of the dead teenaged boy.

For Ming, who speaks only limited Arabic and no Hebrew, part of the fractured storytelling coming out of the West Bank was his work with a translator. At times Ming found working in translation a “huge barrier” that prevented him from “getting the full story.”

It’s an interesting allegory for his time in the West Bank, where Ming reflects, “there is no governing narrative for the conflict.” Ask an Israeli soldier and you’ll hear one tale; ask a Palestinian olive farmer, and you’ll surely hear another.

Returning again and again to a desire to weave a tale of complexity of life in occupied territory, Ming began his senior year “ready to jump back into experiencing this conflict” after much needed “breathing and thinking space” that his time away from the West Bank allowed. And as a dancer and student choreographer with the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre, dance has become an additional way to consider his experience in the West Bank.

Ming recalls working with Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin at a summer dance intensive at Duke University and recognizing the way Naharin uses the movement of bodies as “an embodiment of conflict.”

But Ming is quick to insist—with a deep and apparent reverence for the choreographer— that Naharin’s intensely ritualistic, masculine work “resists political categories,” but that his work “invites rich readings” that transcend obvious statements. It’s clear that in Ming’s choreography he seeks to achieve a similar aesthetic. Of, “Oh!” the piece that Ming calls an “absurdist response to Obama’s election,” he hopes audience members will see it as “political, but not obvious.” He adds, “Like, Ohad [Naharin].”

Performance has infiltrated Ming’s academic life in an essential way. He draws connections between story and performance, conflict and approaches to understanding.

Ming doesn’t want to give away too much information about his senior thesis project, but will say that the piece is a work of performance art that attempts to “imagine families” affected by conflict. Ming will be staging several workshops of a play whose name he wants not to disclose. It’s a play that, “in so few words raises so many issues: families, loyalties, violence, stories we tell ourselves and each other.”

Contributing Editor

nisa Kamlani ’11 arrived at the Project Eye-to-Eye mentoring program to find that her mentee shared her passion for designing shoes. “Like every student, if I really want to avoid my homework, I can find just about anything to help me,” she explained. “My latest and greatest procrastination technique is making custom shoes. On Wednesday, I showed up at Oakwood [Friends School] only to have my very excited mentee exclaim, ‘Anisa! You have to see these awesome shoes I just designed!’

Good to know he and I share a favorite procrastination technique.”

Project Eye-to-Eye, a national non-profit organization, creates a forum that brings students with learning disabilities together. Pairing university and high school student mentors with younger children, the program seeks to empower students with learning disabilities and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to find success. As tutors, role models and friends, the older students help boost their mentees’ self-esteem by providing positive support and discussing learning styles.

Jonathan Mooney and David Flink, both individuals with learning disabilities, started the program while they were students at Brown University in the late 1990s. It took seven years to build the program into its current form with 26 Chapters located in 14 states. “In 1997, this idea occurred; it was really a very simple idea,” Flink, now Executive Director of Project Eyeto-Eye, said in a telephone interview. “It very much built out of my experiences and other students who I met a Brown with learning disabilities, and we were all shocked that we had made it to college.”

In 2002, co-founder Mooney wrote Learning Outside the Lines, a book that discusses mentoring and academic achievement for students with learning disabilities and ADHD. In 2004, Mooney lectured as part of the Steven Hirsch ’71 and Susan Hirsch Fund for Students with Disabilities lecture series at Vassar. The talk inspired Vassar students David Singer ’05 and Kathryn Singer ’05 to initiate the program’s first chapter, sponsored by the same umbrella organization.

Vassar’s chapter of the program, now coordinated by Danny Gilberg ’10 and Kamlani, works with students from grades six through eight at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie. “What’s amazing is that this is something started by college students and is growing because of the commitment of college students with learning differences to make a positive difference in the children’s lives,” explained Vassar’s Associate Dean and Director of Equal Opportunity Belinda Guthrie.

To become Project Coordinators, Gilberg and Kamlani participated in a four-day national conference this summer. “At the orientation, a common feeling of people doing the program was that they wished that they had the opportunity to do something like this as a middle schooler,” Gilberg noted. Flink also described the incredible community feeling that this conference encourages. He stated, “That experience of being around all these college students and other people with learning disabilities is life changing for me every time.”

The seven members of the Vassar chapter visit Oakwood twice a week. On the first visit, the mentor and the student have academic time together—they talk, do homework and play games. Then, every Friday, they return for Art Room, in which they create crafts that correspond with the National Headquarters’ curriculum.

This year’s Art Room theme involves exploring the connections that people with learning disabilities share. Following this notion, for last week’s craft participants constructed a large flag for the chapter. “We had everyone cut out magazine pictures that capture what Project Eye-to-Eye means to them and glue them on pieces of construction paper,” Gilberg explained. “We then glued these smaller sheets on one large piece of paper, symbolizing that each student is a smaller piece in the chapter, which is even a smaller piece in the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

national organization.”

“We were looking for a tool that would allow students to be more comfortable with communicating their feelings,” Flink noted with reference to the program’s artistic aspects. Education activist and writer Maxine Greene’s work spurred the idea to employ artwork as a means to increase communication and self-esteem. “What she’s describing in her work is that art is a form of democracy,” Flink said. “It gives people a voice and allows people to express themselves in ways that they are often not able to. That’s really the bedrock of our work, it allows kids to talk about things that they struggle with in school.”

For another craft earlier this year, everyone plastered a part of their body that represented their talents. “I plastered my hand to symbolize that I’m a hands-on learner,” Gilberg stated.

“One girl did her ear because she’s a good listener.” To wrap up each Art Room session, everyone presents their work of art to the group.

“The point of presenting is so that it gives them an opportunity for them to affirm their talents and weaknesses in a concrete way,” Gilberg said.

Mentors work with the same middle schooler throughout the whole year, allowing them to create profound connections and become comfortable around each other. “What happens is that the kids often start out very hesitant toward the program,” Gilberg elucidated.

“They are at an age where the learning disabilities are a raw nerve. The program starts out as a reminder of their disabilities, but, in the end, the kids warm up to it.”

Thinking back on his own experiences, Gilberg explained that he never had the opportunity to participate in such a program before college. “I was diagnosed with learning disabilities in sixth grade,” he said. “I was old enough to understand that something was going on, but I didn’t really know what. If I had been enrolled in a program like this, it would have helped put everything into perspective.”

Through the mentoring process, these students have brought the community they’ve built at Oakwood back to the Vassar campus.

“I think, first of all, it provides people who do this program with a community of people who understand learning disabilities at Vassar,” Gilberg explained. The mentors give each other advice about accommodations, classes and professors. “When I was a freshman, the program director gave me advice about which classes best suit learning disabilities,” Gilberg said. “It’s great because that advice is very hard to find.”

Speaking to the connection that this program creates among learning-disabled peers, Flink expressed, “I think it’s what has kept me in this program for so many years. Having a learning disability is often a very isolating experience, and you feel like you are the only one who is struggling at school in that unique way and it’s not something that you are encouraged to talk about.”

“When I was suddenly surrounded by college students,” he continued, “all of whom had learning disabilities and were empowered, you realize that the way you learn isn’t broken; it’s just different. It taught me a lot about how I learn and who I am.”

Kamlani further realized that mentoring impacts her own academic endeavors. By helping these younger students feel confident about their abilities, the mentors in turn return to Vassar with more confidence. “Before I started working with Eye-to-Eye, I was stubborn and refused to use my academic accommodations,” she explained. “It was only after starting this program that I realized, ‘Oh hey, it’s totally fine to utilize the tools that I have if it’s going to help me.’”

According to the 2009 National Longitudinal Transitional Study, only one in three students with learning disabilities enrolled in a post-secondary school within two years of graduating from high school. “What is it that makes a Vassar student, or any student that has made it to higher education in particularly selective institutions, to be able to overcome See EYE-TO-EYE on page 8

FEATURES

February 25, 2010

Page 7

Back to basics: rethinking soup and sandwich Nate Silver Columnist

S

Julia Anrather/The Miscellany News

ometimes you really can’t beat a classic.

Four weeks into the semester, with midterms looming on the horizon and the ability to spend long hours in the kitchen dwindling, everyone could use a bit of simple comfort.

And it is with that thought that I ask: Is there anything more delicious, more wholly satisfying, more heart-warming than a crispy, gooey grilled cheese sandwich accompanied by the delicate creaminess of homemade tomato soup? Well, is there? I thought not.

The smile on my housemate’s face when I told her what I’d be making this week was priceless. It was exactly what her grandmother would make every time they were together.

In fact, it was the only thing her grandmother could cook. And she used Campbell’s. I’ll be the first to admit that there is nothing inherently wrong with condensed soup, Wonderbread and Kraft singles, but I would encourage everyone to think about reinventing—or at least experimenting with—the wheel every once in a while. The amount of different breads and cheeses in the world make it, in my opinion, nearly blasphemous never to think outside the childhood box. And though I (sometimes) love canned soup, That said, I think you’d be surprised how simple it is to create a homemade version with less sodium—I dare you to read the nutrition information on those cans—and way more flavor.

As is true with nearly any kitchen creation, with grilled cheese the possibilities are endless. I settled this week on a combination of sharp cheddar (for bite), soft brie (for the melt factor) and some crisped prosciutto (for textural contrast). You could use Swiss, provolone, St. Andre (one of my absolute, though not necessarily budget-conscious, favorites), Gouda, Edam, chevre, mozzarella or anything else your turophiliac heart desires.

Other delightful additions to the center of the sandwich would be roasted red peppers, bacon, tapenade, pesto, tomatoes, arugula or spicy mustard. Your bread could be brioche, baguette, whole wheat, rye or ciabatta. The combinations are endless, and the cheapness and simplicity of this sandwich makes it especially fun to experiment with. And, of course, removing the prosciutto from this recipe makes it vegetarian-friendly. I have to admit vegan-friendly may not be possible once you enter the world of grilled cheese, and I imagine one of the great pains of veganism is the complete elimination of grilled cheese sandwiches from the diet.

I’m not sure who the first person was to combine grilled cheese and tomato soup, though it’s a good bet she is kicking herself daily for failing to patent one of America’s favorite combinations. The secret to my tomato soup is roasting the tomatoes—even though they come from a can (it’s February, after all)— before putting them in the soup. There was something purely magical about sitting down to dinner with a steaming hot bowl of soup, as the winter skies opened and snow flakes began to slowly descend to the lawn outside our house. It’s also worth adding that in general, soup is way more possible than you’d ever expect. It takes less time than you think, fewer ingredients than you’d guess and saves more money than stocking up on cans of Chunky or Progresso. And, as I can say from experience, the looks on peoples’ faces as they walk into the kitchen and smell a hot pot of soup simmering on the stove makes any trouble you go to in preparing your soup well worth it.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches »» 2 long Portuguese torpedo rolls »» 8 long slices brie cheese (1/8 inch thick) »» 8 long slices cheddar cheese (1/8 inch thick) »» 4 thin slices prosicutto »» 1 T olive oil »» Pinch of salt 1. In a hot pan, gently place the slices of prosciutto and cook 30 seconds per side, until crispy, then remove and set aside.

Slice the torpedo rolls down the center.

Cover the bottom of each torpedo roll with four slices of cheddar, then top with the prosciutto, and then top with the brie.

Add a pinch of salt to each sandwich on top of the brie, before placing the top back on each sandwich.

2. If you have a panini-press, it will work really well for this sandwich. If you do not, heat two heavy bottom pans on medium heat. In any case, brush the top and bottom of the sandwich with olive oil and place onto either the panini press or into a heated pan. If using two pans, take the other heated pan and place it on top of the sandwich, pressing down. Cook for five to six minutes, until the bread is very crispy and the sandwich is flattened.

3. Note: if you only have a griddle or one frying pan, just cook the sandwich in it, flipping after three to four minutes. You can apply pressure with your hand, a spatula, or a heavy plate to achieve the same effect as a press.

Grocery List Portuguese torpedo rolls (2) Celery Sage Prosciutto Brie NY Sharp Cheddar Carrots Vegetable Stock Onion Diced Tomatoes Shallot

$1.69 $0.69 $0.99 $2.49 $3.29 $2.60 $0.79 $2.49 $0.59 $3.99 $0.17

Total

$19.78

Products purchased at:

Tomato Soup »» »» »» »» »» »» »» »» »» »»

1 medium onion, chopped 1 shallot, chopped 3 stalks celery, chopped 2 carrots, peeled and chopped 2 28 oz. cans of diced tomatoes (preferable San Marzano) 1/4 c. olive oil 1 t. chopped sage 2 c. vegetable stock Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 t. garlic powder

1. Drain the canned tomatoes well and set aside the liquid. In a roasting or sheet pan, place the tomatoes, two tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Mix well and arrange in a single layer on the pan, and roast in a 400-degree oven for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large pot, heat two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and shallot and sauté five to seven minutes until translucent.

Add the carrots and celery and sauté five minutes more. Add the roasted tomatoes, stock, salt and pepper, sage and garlic powder. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are very soft.

2. Using an immersion blender (a great investment if you don’t have one) gently puree the hot soup. If you’re soup is too thick, you can add more stock until it reaches the desired consistency. Be sure to taste your soup and adjust the seasoning as desired.

3. If you do not have an immersion blender, carefully puree your soup in either a food processor or a blender. As a rule, never fill up a food processor or blender more than half-full of hot liquid, so you may need to do this in batches. If you do not have any of this equipment, you’ve just made chunky tomato soup. Enjoy.

4. To serve, garnish with a dollop of heavy cream or crème fraiche, and a pinch of finely chopped sage.

ADVERTISEMENT

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

765 Dutchess Turnpike Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 (845) 454-4330

Follow recipes in photoessays on

Exposure Vassar in pictures

Exposure is the photojournalism blog of The Miscellany News, featuring the work of our own photographers, as well as Vassar community members producing outstanding work in the medium. The blog aims to capture the visual culture of the Vassar College campus. http://blogs.miscellanynews.com/exposure

FEATURES

Page 8

Casablanca Coffee almost impresses COFFEE continued from page 5 People asking me to spend an evening with them lounging at the Cubbyhole chatting about post-modern poetry isn’t really my cup of tea (so to speak). Neither is an onslaught of cheery people asking me how my morning is going (it normally sucks because it means I’m not asleep anymore.) What does get me excited is funky stuff. People, places, designs. If it’s quirky, I’m in. Lucky for me, there are places in Poughkeepsie that cater to my eccentricities.

I’m a firm believer that one of the best ways to find these quirky food venues is to get out of one’s comfort zone. For me—and, to be fair, most of Vassar’s students—the small portion of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie just north of the train station is foreign enough to be another city entirely. The culture around Marist College and the commercial zone that caters to the College has an entirely different atmosphere than the three blocks of Arlington by Vassar. A desire to find the new led me to a coffee house right in the heart of this world.

Which brings me to the main event: Casablanca Coffee Co. Casablanca is right across the street from Marist in a little commercial park that also houses a tanning salon and tattoo parlor. Stepping inside, two things struck me immediately. One: This place is obviously in the business of catering to college students. The prices were amazing throughout, and the quirky, unpolished design insisted upon no excuses, no apologies. Two: While students are the obvious target market, just being in college doesn’t make

you fit in here. I hardly ever get very self-conscious, but I just couldn’t help noticing the fact that I felt out of place. This is probably because I wasn’t wearing a sweat suit and Uggs to match the girls and guys seated around me.

But the simple, unavoidable value of the place assuaged any of my lingering fashion hesitancies. I don’t often list prices, but here I feel that I must. Coffee (that tastes really good) and a bagel (that you can get in a ton of varieties— jalapeño for myself) with cream cheese (again, everything from plain to walnut raisin to olive) will never run you more than $4.50. That price seems to be something of a moniker for them, as their most expensive breakfast item (on an extensive list), the “Famous Breakfast Burrito,” loaded with eggs, sausage, jack cheese, onions, peppers and tomato, is the same price, and well worth it.

The lunch menu, which caters to vegetarians as well as meat-lovers, tops out at $7. The deals hardly stop there. What if you’re into buying in bulk? Fear not, my friend. You can also buy big bags of day-old bagels for a buck and a half.

Wallets aside, Casablanca offers some interesting menu bits that aren’t strictly by the book. A huge menu of rotating flavored coffee is available for those who want some variety and aren’t too stickler-ish about their preferences. Something that you don’t see too often in a small coffee operation—an extensive and customizable smoothie menu—sits next to the espresso drinks with an element of some prominence.

Of course no place is perfect, and Casablanca does have some issues.

Their pastry selection is both lackluster and limited. On my visit, there were three sad looking muffins and two cupcakes whose frosting looked like it had crustified more than a couple days ago. They do a good job of not reminding you of this by hiding that particular display case in a shadowy corner. But for me, pastries are an integral part of the café experience and a failure to recognize this on their part is pretty disappointing. The shop’s layout is also a bit bonkers, which is a blessing and a curse. Which brings me to the age-old question of atmosphere. Here, I am a picky customer.

It seems that Casablanca couldn’t quite master whether they wanted a lounge atmosphere or a typical café atmosphere with round tables and tall chairs. The café interestingly attempts to straddle the Crafted Kup-Cubbyhole divide by literally dividing the space in the café. A short aisle separates a plush couch and poofy chairs on one side from wooden, acute seating blocks set against the window.

So the quest continues. Would that I could declare an ultimate coffee house atmosphere champion, but I’m forced to declare that I cannot. Perhaps this is part of the appeal of the American coffee house, a culinary genre that we’ve stolen from the Europeans and are still struggling to adapt. But I remain optimistic about the prospects for caffeine consumption when you dare to venture away from Vassar.

Maybe I’ll never find the perfect coffee house, but at least I continue down this (possibly endless) road with a thirsty spirit and plenty of caffeine surging through my veins to boot.

February 25, 2010

The infinite universe, from Vassar’s backyard OBSERVATORY from page 5 gas giant. Most impressive, you can see Saturn’s rings—delicate structures of ice, gas and dust.

Although you can’t see more delicate features, there are actually moonlets embedded in these gargantuan rings.

But there’s no reason to stop at Saturn. There’s no reason to stop at all, for that matter. The sky has always been a source of awe an wonder; humans ache for contact with another civilization in this vast void. Using advanced technology right in

Mentor program opens eyes EYE-TO-EYE from page 1 those odds?” Guthrie asked.

“From what I have heard, at some point in their lives, they’ve had a mentor. They’ve had someone who believed in them and recognized their potential and nurtured their hope to have a successful life.”

By becoming mentors, these students generate hope and support in these younger students’ minds. “There is something extremely powerful to a child about having that mentor be someone who is a young adult,” Guthrie noted, “because there’s a child who is struggling in school and here they have a successful college student that they can look

ADVERTISEMENT

Snow days bring pros and cons SNOW continued from page 1 considered administrators are permitted to stay home. On days when the College and administrative offices are closed, students are still expected to attend their classes, unless individual faculty members choose to cancel them, which is usually not the case.

In an e-mailed statement, Dean of the College Christopher Roellke wrote that he believes the reason classes must still be held is because “we are a residential college … [98 percent of] our students live on campus.”

Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier, who is in charge of making the final call on whether to close certain parts of the College when weather becomes inclement, explained that “because Vassar has such a large proportion of its faculty living on or adjacent to campus, there has been a tradition of holding classes, regardless of snow.”

Conventional wisdom and rumor among students holds that Vassar holds classes for the minimum days possible to be considered an accredited college by New York State standards, but Eismeier explained that she is not “aware of Vassar’s situation with respect to New York State standards for days in session.”

Eismeier works closely with the Department of Buildings and Grounds when making the decision to close the College, and according to Eismeier, if administrative offices are closed for an entire day, it is “often in response to widespread travel limitations in the surrounding area.”

On days when snowfall is particularly heavy, the administration is not the only sector of the College that closes. The Athletic and Fitness Center is periodically closed, causing frustration for many students, particularly in-season athletes.

According to women’s basketball Head Coach Candice Brown, this is because the College considers trainers part

of the administration and are, therefore, not required to come in on inclement weather days. Without trainers, the College considers it unsafe for coaches to hold practice in case of physical injury.

Men’s lacrosse Head Coach Joe Proud sees how coaches who are in-season get frustrated at not being able to hold practice, but also understands that “without staff running the facility, athletic trainers [holding practice] is a liability.”

Brown said that she holds voluntary sessions in the weight room and noncontact practice on days when the gym is closed, but that having snow days is “definitely a set back. If we’re in-season, there’s work to be done.”

Arguably the most important resource for Vassar students, snow or no snow, is the Thompson Memorial Library. Librarian Gretchen Lieb stated in an e-mailed statement that although librarians are contractually administrators, they “are able to participate in faculty housing, and that’s very helpful in terms of keeping the Library open and help available for researchers on snow days because several of us live within walking distance.”

Lieb noted that those who cannot make it in to work at the Library make up hours in other ways, which is easy for them to do due to long weekends and evening hours. In her 10 years at Vassar, Lieb observed, the Library has never been closed for a snow day while school is in session, although it has closed early once or twice. Spencer explained, “Closing the College, which usually means closing the administrative offices, rarely results in the Library closing.”

Even though the administration may be able to stay at home, Lieb encouraged a positive attitude towards snow days, pointing out that, “snow days are excellent for reading, and a canceled class is a great opportunity to catch up or work on a research project.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Vassar’s backyard, we can measure these photons and gather knowledge about the universe of which we are a miniscule part.

Wednesday nights at the Vassar Observatory are your chance to explore a frontier that will never close—weather permitting of course. There’s literally no end to the night sky, which is good news for everyone from the seasoned observational astronomer to the student who simply wants a glimpse at something at once familiar and endlessly mysterious: the universe.

up to and say, ‘Well, they did it, so maybe I can.’”

Kamlani explained that the mentorship process allows her to discuss her learning differences: “Working with Eye-to-Eye really helped me open up to my friends about my learning disabilities too. I was nervous the first time I brought it up, afraid of being judged and what not. But it was like, okay, if seventh graders can do this, I really should be able to as well.”

“I love going to Oakwood,” Kamlani expressed. “The two hours I spend with the kids each week are two hours of getting to be someone’s superhero. And how is that not the coolest feeling ever?”

OPINIONS

February 25, 2010

Page 9

Academic Credit for Varsity Athletes

Additional Credit for Natural Science Labs

Lab credits, respect for Varsity athletics do not hard work are deserved equal academic credit Lita Sacks

M

Guest Columnist

uch has been said lately both in support of and in opposition to awarding credit for natural science labs. I could add to the number of articles that spew numbers and facts, tell you what percent of Vassar students are in support of awarding credit, compare the number of hours a natural science major spends in class to a humanities major taking the same number of units or describe how awarding additional credit would cause many science majors to exceed the maximum allowance for in-department units. Instead, I will voice my opinion, and the opinion of many of my fellow science majors, with regards to lab credits and the value of science in a concise and nearly numberless manner.

Majoring in a natural science is a huge commitment of both time and effort. Although I frequently complain about my extensive workload and class hours for which lab is directly responsible, I love (almost) every minute of it. Many people claim that we don’t deserve additional units of credit for our required three or four hours of lab a week that accompany 150 minutes of lecture because we enjoy it and know what we are getting ourselves into when we declare a major in a natural science. What I fail to see is what possible association this has with the number of deserved units for academic work.

Students in choir, in orchestra, and soon those who play varsity sports, are able to receive credit for their extracurricular endeavors. They have a great passion for their respective activities and surely are aware of the commitment to them when registering. Why is it that they receive credit for their extracurricular endeavors when we do not receive proper credit for our

academic endeavors?

We’ve dealt with a lack of lab credits up until now and can continue to do so. However, what started as a sense of being underappreciated by the administration has morphed into a feeling of abandonment by our peers. Often forgotten at Vassar Student Association (VSA) meetings is the fact that Council members have been elected to express the views of their respective groups on campus in a manner that satisfies the requirements and responsibilities of the College with what the student body needs. The VSA Academic Committee has acknowledged that the majority of Vassar students are in favor of awarding lab credits and even began to act upon this sentiment. Perhaps a better, and admittedly more cynical, description of the Committee’s actions would be they attempted to satisfy the growing voices on campus by drafting a letter to various science professors and abandoning the project once they received some negative feedback. Any scientist can tell you that abandoning an experiment because the preliminary results do not support your hypothesis is no way to get anything accomplished. You have to persevere and see the project to completion.

Even if you don’t get perfect data, there is value to the process and the pursuit.

What it comes down to is that I, and all natural science majors, feel slighted by the College.

We deserve credit for our work, which we have yet to receive. We will continue studying science if we are awarded that credit or not. What we are fighting for is not just an additional half or quarter unit per lab; it is the acknowledgment that the natural sciences require an enormous amount of commitment and dedication and are just as valuable as any other department or activity on campus.

David Reuss

A

Guest Columnist

s a Division III athlete participating in cross country and track, varsity sports have been and continue to be a major part of my education. I feel that training to master a sport has infinite parallels to mastering a subject in the classroom, and I have found that the mental attitude that is essential for successful training and competing has made me a more competent and successful student. Although I am extremely thankful to be able to participate in a sport that is constantly complementing my classes and contributing to my education, I do not think that athletics deserve academic credit.

There are many time-consuming and mentally stimulating activities that are classified as extracurricular activities. It is therefore important to distinguish between a class that earns academic credit and an extracurricular activity. An extracurricular activity is an activity that lies outside of what would be considered a normal education. No matter how valuable and educational these experiences can be, they should always be considered as complements to a core education composed of classes that earn academic credit. At a Division III school, it is reasonable to assume that athletics are meant to complement classes and so, no matter how intense a sport can be, it is still an extracurricular activity.

The fact that athletics do not earn academic credit ensures that those who wish to participate are passionate about the sport and will not sacrifice academic rigor for the sake of athletics. Offering credit for athletics makes academic classes and athletics interchangeable in that one can choose between

a class and a sport. By creating this means of tradability between classes and athletics, athletics are no longer seen as complements to classes. A potential athlete who once wondered whether or not he or she could handle a sport in addition to classes can now decide whether they want to replace a class with a sport that will earn them just as much credit.

At a Division III school, the administration should be most concerned about the classroom aspect of an education and should do what it can to make sure that a student’s decision of whether or not to participate in athletics does not alter their academic decisions.

While in principle I feel that athletics do not deserve academic credit, realistically I do not think that the decision will have any significant effect. All current athletes would participate in their given sport regardless of credit offered. Additionally, anyone who decides to participate in a sport because of the credit will soon realize that an academic credit is not the kind of reward that an athlete has to work for. An academic credit alone will not convince someone to willingly participate in an activity that leaves you physically drained after hours of work every day. Athletes must be driven by passion and rewarded by their accomplishments. Without discounting the unbelievable amount of hard work that athletes must put forth in addition to their academic studies, I believe that as a symbolic gesture it would be wrong for Vassar to place athletics on an equal level with academics.

—David Reuss ’12 is a math major. He participates in cross country in the fall and track in the spring.

ViCE should regulate portion of budget to collaboration “The problem with ViCE is not that they are too exclusive in terms of membership: Anyone can join. It is that they are too exclusive with regard to other organizations.” —Jay Leff ’10, Hip Hop 101 President Jay Leff

W

Guest Columnist

hen I was asked to write an editorial for the Miscellany concerning Vassar College Entertainment’s (ViCE) budget from the perspective of co-President of Hip Hop 101 I knew immediately what needed to be said. Come May, I will have been co-President of Hip Hop 101 for three years and that experience has given me an up-close and personal perspective of the Vassar Student Association (VSA), VSA funding, ViCE, the Student Activity Resource Center (SARC) and Campus Activities that few other students have. Over the last three years it has become abundantly clear to me that, for the most part, ViCE is very good at what they do. Despite their less-than-stellar reputation with the student body, they are the best at navigating all of the organizations and offices I just listed.

In spite of this fact, there is a major flaw with concern to the relationship between ViCE and other organizations that needs to be addressed. ViCE falters in it relationships with other organizations in that it is given over a third of all the money budgeted to campus organizations, yet does not work in a significant way to find other organizations with awesome ideas and help them make those ideas real.

After three years of witnessing this, I believe the only way to fix it would be financial regulations placed on ViCE’s budget by the VSA— specifically regulation that requires a significant amount of ViCE’s funding to be used for collaboration with other student organizations.

This week I attended the Sunday VSA meeting as I always do on days when Hip Hop 101 has a fund application up for consideration. As always, our application—for our annual Throwback Jam, a block party and concert on the quad—generated a heated debate in the VSA. The debate largely focused on the difference between ViCE and Hip Hop 101, a comparison that I view as mostly irrelevant as ViCE is meant to

be all encompassing and generalized, while our organization is relatively small and specialized.

Moreover, our goal is not just to put on concerts; it is to utilize hip-hop culture, which is a commonality and strong link between the Vassar community and the Poughkeepsie community, to promote peace, unity, love and having fun. Nonetheless, there are reasons the comparison was made and why they were perceived as relevant.

Last week the Miscellany published a Staff Editorial titled “The Miscellany commends ViCE for inclusivity” (2.18.10). In this editorial, the Miscellany’s editorial board praises ViCE for “the significant link that the [Flaming Lips] concert has made between on-campus and offcampus communities.” I think the comparison of Hip Hop 101 to ViCE last night had mostly to do with this idea. While I do not doubt that there is some truth in the importance of hosting a major event off campus, the truth is that this event is not set up to significantly “strengthen the often-adverse relationship between Vassar College and the wider local community.” Instead of pursuing this goal, I would assert that this event in some way imposes a particular type of Vassar College culture onto the Poughkeepsie community, one that is not necessarily present in the community itself.

To begin with, consider the artist of choice: I have nothing against the Flaming Lips, but what part of the Poughkeepsie community are we reaching for with this particular group? Maybe we are targeting the community of college students in the area, but we do not necessarily have an adverse relationship with Bard, for example.

Secondly, consider the $35 price tag for nonstudent concertgoers: That sounds welcoming, right? Or consider the potentially detrimental effects of the presence of drugs and alcohol that will likely be brought into the Poughkeepsie community with this event. All in all, it seems likely that this event is “in Poughkeepsie” for another reason: The Civic Center was cheap to

rent ($2,500) and is the only space big enough for this elaborate show. (ViCE spent well over $60,000 of our money to put it on.)

On the other hand, Throwback Jam, which will be held this year on the afternoon of the Flaming Lips show on April 17, does actually reach out to the Poughkeepsie community and does something real and even tangible with concern to this “adverse relationship.” Our event features music and culture that is shared between our two communities, it is free and it is highly promoted throughout the city. Last year approximately half of our 750 to 1,000 attendees were Poughkeepsie community members. All of our events are similarly comprised. Even our weekly meetings promote unity. In all four years I have been here, I doubt that I have attended a Hip Hop 101 general body weekly meeting that did not include of at least one member of the student body, one member of the College staff and one member of the Poughkeepsie community—and most meetings have many of each.

The point is that when it comes to throwing an event that is supposed to bring these communities together we (and other organizations, too, it deserves saying) have the experience and the perspective to do it. The problem with ViCE is not that they are too exclusive in terms of membership: Anyone can join. It is that they are too exclusive with regard to other organizations. If they really wanted to throw an event that brings our communities together, then they needed to ask us and other groups with similar missions to be at the drawing board with them.

I think ultimately that the VSA does the right thing by funding ViCE as heavily as they do, but with that privilege ViCE has a responsibility that so far they have refused. Imagine if our system was organized like this: Instead of going immediately to the VSA for extra funding when we were planning Throwback Jam, we went to ViCE (which we have many times), and they responded by saying, “Yeah, that is going

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to be awesome, clearly you know how to put on a hip-hop event, you specialize in it, we would love to work with you, be a part of the event and fund this.” (They have never done this for any large event in three years.) Yes, ViCE is incredible at navigating the bureaucracy of the College and has the infrastructure to handle large sums of money. Yet, it seems obvious that Vassar Teknowledgy is worth including when throwing a giant DJ dance party, VC Punx is worth including when throwing a punk rock concert and Hip Hop 101 when throwing a hip-hop event.

Why not regulate ViCE to hold a significant amount of their budget with the requirement that it be used in collaboration with other organizations? This adjustment would keep the current student organization infrastructure, but promotes the best use of the available money— those that care about a specific type of event get a hand in planning it. ViCE not only should approach Hip Hop 101 when they want to throw a hip-hop event, they should feel obligated to.

Additionally, they should have serious incentive to work with any organization that approaches them with a good idea. By making a significant portion of ViCE’s budget tied to collaboration, the VSA would be making both these things a reality, and would be making ViCE a lot more inclusive. Most importantly, they would be helping other organizations that have overlap with ViCE find funding for their events without draining the VSA coffers. Lastly, such regulation might cause the competition between ViCE and other student organizations to dissipate, engendering a cooperative spirit among them and hopefully correcting the hierarchical perception of the VSA, ViCE and “the rest” of student organizations.

—Jay Leff ’10 is the co-President of Hip Hop 101.

He collaborated on this column with Emma Carmichael ’10 and Carola Beeney ’11, co-President and member of Hip Hop 101, respectively.

ADVERTISEMENT

February 25, 2010

Letter: Palin an easy target for tired Dems I

f you open up The Miscellany News and turn to the Opinions section, it is a good bet that you are bound to find one or more articles that negatively make reference to—if are not entirely devoted to attacking—former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In fact, when some on the left have trouble finding topics to write about—despite the global economic instability, massive health care legislation, the continued military effort in the Middle East, increasing deficits and the recent major defeats of the Democratic Party—they seem to resort to further caricaturing of Sarah Palin. As humorous as this might seem, it is anything but a joke.

“Sarah Palin just doesn’t go away.

It’s been a slow week, and I wasn’t sure what to write about. I was having a little bit of trouble finding something to get me so angry,” wrote Steve Keller in his column, “Sarah Palin, Tea Partiers lack grasp of reality” (2.11.10). What is it about Sarah Palin that makes her the default topic of choice for those on the left? In particular, why is it that among a group of people who profess to be tolerant, we see such vicious attacks against a human being with whom they just disagree?

What we do not understand, we ridicule. Those ideas we regard as “sick and twisted,” to use Keller’s language, we caricature. As tolerant as those on the left may proclaim to be, it would seem that those with whom they vehemently disagree are not deserving of that tolerance. Why? First, Sarah Palin is an easy political See PALIN on page 12

OPINIONS Targeted terrorists killings an effective, if unsettling measure Joshua Rosen

I

Assistant Opinions Editor

’m not one to give much credence to statements made by terrorist organizations, but when I found a post on the BBC News website dated Jan. 29 that said Hamas was reporting that a “senior Hamas military commander has been assassinated by Israel in Dubai,” I nodded and moved on to the rest of my daily news reading. As befits my perspective, I gave scant attention to the BBC article other than its headline, since this assassination seemed like little more than a positive step towards thwarting the goals of terrorists. As I browsed my usual news and commentary sources—The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Jerusalem Post and a number of national security blogs—the same story that I had seen on the BBC kept popping up. So, begrudgingly, I went back to the BBC article and Googled the name of the terrorist who had been killed.

Apparently, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas leader killed in Dubai on Jan. 19, was not an upstanding fellow. Not only is he one of the founders of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, what The New York Times calls the “military” arm of Hamas, both of which are recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States and European Union, but Mr. Mabhouh was also implicated in “weapons smuggling operations into Gaza” that involved liaisons with the Iranian regime, according to The New York Times in an article published on Jan. 29. In reference to Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist groups, “weapons smuggling” tends to refer to the illicit shipment of antipersonnel rockets and sundry, small arms from Iran to terrorists in the Gaza Strip for use against civilians. As such, when it was reported that the chief of police of Dubai asserted that he was “99 percent, if not 100 percent [certain] that” the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, was behind the killing, I was all but cheery, for

Palin exploits family to further her career Joseph Hoffheimer

A

Guest Columnist

year ago, nobody would have thought that Sarah Palin, John McCain’s failed pick for vice president, would still make headlines this long after their crushing electoral defeat. Of course, I would have never anticipated Scott Brown’s election or the inability of the largest Democratic majorities since, um, Carter, to pass a health care bill, either. With anything possible now, maybe the ability of Palin to still exploit her family in order to make attention-grabbing headlines, this time in a spat over the word “retarded,” should not come as a surprise either.

The whole spectacle began when Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, used the word in a meeting.

Obviously, if a man appointed by the Muslim Marxist from Kenya said the word “retarded,” it meant a direct attack on the traditional American small-town family values of hunting and fishing upheld by the Palin family, which happens to include a child with Down syndrome.

Actually, I should say that other than Sarah, the kid is the Palin family, along with her “born-again virgin” daughter. Forget Track and Willow and Hummer—oops, made that last one up. They don’t generate publicity for her, so they don’t exist.

While I generally do agree that use of the word retarded is best left out of formal discussion and try to avoid using it myself, if Palin had actually paid attention to what Emanuel said, she would have probably agreed with him. After all, he was calling the few liberal Demo-

crats who continue to have a spine “retarded” because they continued to fight for a health care plan with a public option. This is the guy who makes his party cave in to Joe Lieberman at every given opportunity, yet Palin took automatic offense in order to generate even more publicity for her failed political ambitions.

Of course, an apology was in order, and Palin’s antics forced Emanuel to call the president of the Special Olympics, just as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had to speak with Al Sharpton after the same Republican extremists took his non-racist comments on Obama’s race—that Obama even agreed with—out of proportion.

Literally not more than a day later, Palin suddenly changed course. After all, there was one person who could get away with what she now called the “R-word:” Rush Limbaugh, the same man whom Michael Steele once had to apologize to and acknowledge as the true head of the Republican Party.

Palin would not dare make the de facto leader of her party apologize for using such a word and, in fact, defended his use of it in a typically unintelligible Palin sentence.

The last part of the saga came later when an episode of Family Guy made an implicit joke about Trig, Palin’s son with Down syndrome.

Although Palin called the reference a “kick in the jaw,” Andrea Jay Friedman, the actress who voiced the line, got the last word.

Friedman, who happens to have Down syndrome as well, said, “In my family, we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to

if Israel successfully pursued a terrorist leader, I am quite certain that the assassination was justifiable, whether it was strictly legal or not.

Even though there exists some doubt that Israel was responsible for this operation, Israel would most certainly be justified in targeting al-Mabhouh for assassination and, in doing so through an in-person assassination rather than, say, a missile strike on Hamas enclaves in Gaza, risked much less collateral damage. Thus, this assassination was very much the “least-bad alternative” to letting a terrorist wanted by a number of nations, including Egypt and Jordan, smuggle weapons used to kill civilians into Gaza.

In the context of countering terrorism on a global scale, targeted killings of terrorist leaders must remain among the arsenal of the clandestine services of the free nations of the world.

When applied judiciously, targeted killings— whether by commando raids, drone strikes or other methods—can be an effective tactic for engaging high-value targets throughout the world, as both the Bush and Obama administrations have admitted, even to the point where Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated “both President Bush and President Obama have made clear that we will go after al-Qaeda wherever al-Qaeda is.

And we will continue to pursue that,” in reference to targeted killings of al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Afghanistan and surrounding areas.

It would be a dangerous precedent for the free world to give up on targeting terrorists. Crippling global terror is a vital task that has fallen to the United States, the European Union and their allies across the globe in the 21st century. The use of targeted killings and other clandestine operations to target terrorist groups and their leaders, when coupled with programs to resolve the fundamental causes of terror, is an effective, if off-putting, way to go about accomplishing an unpleasant burden.

Page 11

Which professor would you like to see play in the studentfaculty basketball game?

“Paul Johnson” (Professor of Economics)

Emily Sufran ’13

“Peter Pappas” (Professor of Mathematics)

MaryChris Arena ’12 “Debora Elmegreen.

She’s flossy ballin.’”

Miscellany News Online Poll

(Professor of Astronomy)

Tyler Glover ’13

“Beth Darlington, because she’s Beth Darlington.”

(Professor of English)

Henry Behel ’10

have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.” As a final punch, she added, “My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.” Ouch.

I have to give Friedman credit here, since she made it safe for the rest of us to say something that has been apparent for ages now. Since 2008, Palin and her conservative allies, including Limbaugh and John McCain, have flaunted her two attention-grabbing children as a means of political exploitation. If you paid close attention in one of the presidential debates, you would have noticed how McCain defended Palin’s “special needs experience” because her child “had autism,” an epidemic condition unrelated to Down Syndrome or Sarah Palin’s family. In a similar vein, Palin used the child as an example of who her sensa-

tionalistic and delusional “death panels” in Obama’s fascist communist government takeover of health care could possibly decide to kill.

While I generally agree that politician’s families ought to remain offlimits, Palin crosses a line. Notice how “Amtrak Joe” Biden, a family man who traveled home every weekend to visit his children, has never exploited his family for political purposes, and nobody has ever even seen his kids in a political context.

Barack Obama’s family holds a more prominent position, since they reside in the White House, but he never uses his family as a threat or means of grabbing attention for himself.

Palin’s motive, on the contrary, involves bizarrely exploiting her family to create a spectacle in support of her spineless political career, whether it involves speaking at the convention of a fake political party or, more importantly, justifying a run for president in 2012.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Himadeep Muppidi. He’s perfect at everything he does.”

Noor Mir ’12

(Associate Professor of Political Science)

“John Ahern because he’s a shining star.”

(Professor of Italian)

Sophie Youles ’12 —Angela Aiuto and Kelly Shortridge, Opinions Editors

OPINIONS

Page 12

Illegal downloading hurtful to musicians David Wojciechowski

I

Guest Columnist

n her recent article “College correct on stronger illegal downloading penalties” (2.18.10), Opinions Editor Angela Aiuto ’11 hit the nail on the head regarding the moral implications of illegal downloading.

It is, for lack of a better word, petty theft, and taking a song— or really, any other piece of art in any medium—without the express permission of the artist or the holder of the copyright is not only legally dubious at best but a morally reprehensible thing to do as well. Aiuto made a clear and well-reasoned argument on this front.

She did not, however, go far enough with her defense of the College’s policy regarding the punishment for illegal downloading. In the event that the College was caught allowing its students to illegally download music and movies, it would be liable for all the fees and penalties that, under normal circumstances, would be paid by the individuals responsible. Students need to understand that, whether they agree with it or not, Vassar College has to follow the law, and if they do not want the College’s protection from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America, they should feel free to deal with those organizations directly. To give just a little taste of what that would be like, in June of last year, a Minnesota jury found in favor of the RIAA over a 32-year-old woman to the tune of $1.9 million ($80,000 per song, 24 songs).

Yes, Vassar tuition is expensive, but not that expensive.

Last winter, I was faced with a very unique situation; I was given the opportunity to work with the band Beirut when they played a gig at Vassar and at two subsequent gigs in New York City. I also got a chance to meet and talk to a band that, prior to that time, I had not been aware of and whose music I had never heard. At one point, a friend of mine offered to let me borrow her Beirut CDs so I could burn them onto my hard drive. On the verge of accepting, I stopped: Something just felt...wrong. I’d done that sort of thing before, so why should it be any different this time?

Let’s imagine for a minute, in an example that I hope everyone can relate to, that you have illegally downloaded every Beatles album. You love them so very much, listen to them every day and fall asleep every night clenching a Paul McCartney body pillow ever so close. Then, one day, you happen upon Sir Paul in the street.

Are you going to exuberantly exclaim to his face that you downloaded all his music for free? Are you going to feel proud for listening to “Abbey Road” every day without paying a penny for the right to do so? I hope that anyone in that situation could only feel shame and guilt, and would even posit a theory that anyone who doesn’t is possibly psycho-

pathic. So, of course, having met the members of Beirut, I felt uncomfortable partaking of their music for free. I politely declined my friend’s gracious offer and went without downloading Beirut’s music, illegally or otherwise. Quite frankly, this whole matter could be avoided if people could learn to go without something they can’t afford, even if it can be acquired illegally with little or no consequence.

Things change once you’ve worked closely with a recording artist or a record label. Yes, a few of the labels and several of the artists make it to stardom, winning fame and fortune and everything that goes with it, but for every band as successful as Queen, there are hundreds struggling to sell their albums on iTunes; for every Lady GaGa, there are prospective pop stars making the rounds at the clubs of New York City just trying to get by. Radiohead offers their most recent work for free because they can—it’s not an indication of a rich, bloated industry that can afford to bleed money to satisfy the urges of liberal arts students. Most artists do not get big multi-album recording contracts anymore, and most record labels can’t afford to give them, either. More and more often, contracts are simply an agreement between an artist and a label to go in on the distribution of one album together, so that if they’ve both done their jobs right, they might make some money. During my time working at an independent record label, one of the artists we signed had spent all her savings from her day job simply to record and mix her album. You may wonder how downloading bigwigs like Death Cab for Cutie and Aerosmith possibly mess with small-time artists, and the answer is quite simple: as record labels lose more and more income to illegal downloading, they invest less and less money into developing new and upcoming talent, opting to conserve it for spending on their surefire winners instead.

On an even more personal level, I am quite good friends with (as far as I know) three current Vassar students that are hoping to someday make a career out of their music. Having worked with two of them professionally, how could I honestly live with myself if I had to confess to their faces that, in their formative years as a songwriter, during all their struggles and hardships, I had illegally acquired their music instead of paying for it? For me, and for any of you who have friends that are musicians, professionally or otherwise, this shouldn’t be an issue about legality or illegality, morality or immorality; it should be, above all else, about respect. If you truly enjoy what an artist does, it only makes sense to show it in a way that will enable them to continue doing what the musician (and presumably you) love.

—David Wojciechowski is a member of the Class of 2009. He was a music major.

February 25, 2010

Downloading punishment not College’s duty Kelly Shortridge

L

Opinions Editor

ast week, my co-Editor Angela Aiuto correctly examined the legality of illegal file sharing (“College correct on stronger illegal downloading penalties,” 2.18.10); however, the legality of the issue is, in my opinion, not the main point of contention in the debate over College punishments to students because of illegal file sharing.

Not only has illegal file sharing been on the rise at Vassar, but I would also wager that the vast majority of students have also lent a friend a CD or burned a mix of songs for friends.

The friend can easily copy the music from these CDs to their computer, and the end result is the same: These individuals have received music for free. Should Vassar crack down on CD sharing and mix CDs too? I say no.

Before discussing whether or not Vassar should punish illegal downloaders, however, I think that the intricacies of the general issue must be discussed.

For years, music has been overpriced. Music that was low quality (in general) did not sell as well, while popular music sold well. This has not changed. If illegal file sharing was erased from existence tomorrow, people would not suddenly buy all the music that they were downloading. If Whole Foods did not give out delicious samples anymore, would you start buying the whole product instead? No. You simply wouldn’t consume samples and still buy what you wanted to buy. You eat the samples because they are there, and people illegally download because they can.

Furthermore, artists are still making money—obscene amounts of money, in fact. Instead of making money off of CDs, they are now making money off of tours. Tours are not something you can copy or download; they are an experience, a testament to the talents and charisma of the musicians. I personally am willing to pay very high prices to see my favorite acts when they tour while perhaps not downloading their CDs because the live experience is

so incredible, and downloading their songs is simply a preview of the greatness to come in their live acts. I know I am not alone in this practice, either.

Yet, there are some musicians who don’t perform live, such as electronic bands. I believe that it is up to the band to express to their fans that if they are to continue creating their music, they need their fans to donate money, buy merchandise or buy the music. In these cases, I am sure fans would be more than willing to help contribute as long as the band is high quality—as they did when Radiohead asked for their fans to pay as much as they thought the album was worth—and the music industry should work so as to have great bands be supported and lackluster music (Heidi Montag comes to mind) be slowly faded out of the scene.

Free music downloads also benefit underground or up-and-coming artists.

The Internet allows millions of people instant access to tunes, and instead of having to have a record label and a wellmarketed CD, new acts can instead post some songs on MySpace and gain quite a bit of notoriety, and songs spreading through Frostwire or BitTorrent can allow even more people to sample the band’s music, perhaps generating even more buzz. If anything, I would argue that the “free-music-download revolution” has benefited smaller artists.

And I believe this is a good thing. In an ideal world, I think soldiers, firemen and other admirable workers should be paid more than sports, movie or music stars. We clearly do not live in this world, but we do live in a world in which we can “vote” with our dollars. Every time we buy a Kashi-brand cereal instead of a Kellogs-brand alternative, we are voting in favor of Kashi.

Every time we buy a certain label of clothing, we are voting to support its future as a clothing company. Similarly, every time I don’t buy a movie ticket to a Tom Cruise movie, I am voting against Tom Cruise. Not paying for CDs is therefore voting against high prices, against mass-produced crap that barely has a melody.

However, Aiuto also brought up an important moral point in her column; she asked, “Would the average file sharer feel comfortable stealing an $800 pair of designer shoes?” The answer, I think, would be decidedly no, but I also think that this comparison is not entirely accurate. If the question is rephrased to “Would the average file sharer feel comfortable owning a copy of an $800 pair of designer shoes?” I think the answer would most likely be yes. If I had the opportunity to own a copy of some Louboutin platforms, I would snatch them up immediately; would I steal them, though? Absolutely not. But the music isn’t being stolen, just like taking a cell phone picture of a Rothko at the Museum of Modern Art is not stealing.

The cell picture is not nearly as good as the real thing, just as an illegally downloaded song is nowhere near as incredible as hearing the song live in concert.

I decidedly believe that illegal downloading is an important message to music companies and is not the “downfall” of the music industry (though lip-synchers who don’t write their own music might be!). However, it is illegal and does present a problem to the College.

This is a legal matter, though, and thus should be dealt with as a legal matter— if the College receives a complaint or lawsuit from Warner Bros. Music, they should of course require the students to pay any fines received and allow the company to prosecute accordingly.

However, they should not punish students within the confines of academic regulation unless they are also going to punish for the aforementioned CD sharing, lending books to each other or printing out the cell phone picture of the Rothko and giving it to a friend.

How far can the College go regulating the distribution of art and its copies before it succumbs to moral judgments rather than protecting its interests?

—Kelly Shortridge ’12 is the Opinions Editor. This year, she and Opinions Editor Angela Aiuto ’11 are maintaining an alternating column in which they engage one another in conversation.

Keller chooses Sarah Palin as default topic PALIN continued from page 11 target for the left. She has shown herself to be somewhat un-intellectual in her national speeches against Obama, believes in “backward” family values—her young daughter has a child despite the legality of abortion—not to mention that she supposedly denies the theory of evolution. She is the perfect image of the Bible-hugging, “ignorant,” right-wing zealot whose very existence endangers the well-being of America. Tolerance, decency and courtesy can evidently be abandoned when dealing with such a scourge of society.

Do not mistake me: If the left needs a political target, Sarah Palin, for all those reasons, is a splendid one. When has it ever been okay, even for a comedian, to joke about an 18-year-old single mom—if I give David Letterman the benefit of the doubt as to which daughter he was referring—having sex with a baseball player? Didn’t Don Imus lose his job when he made slurs that were not even as deliberated as Letterman’s was? What then could be the motivation for such a double standard and vile speech?

The truth is that recent events have put many on the left in denial, and that people in denial resort to drastic measures. Democrats have lost governorships in two states and a Senate seat in the very liberal state of Massachusetts. What could be the cause of this? Certainly, it must be everything but universal health care and the other aspects of liberal agenda brought upon by President Obama and the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. After all, how could anyone be against progress?

The left does not wish to talk about these events objectively because it contradicts much of their deep philosophical underpinnings as a matter of principle. This is why Keller’s default topic amidst the most intense political climate since Sept. 11 is Sarah Palin. The change that occurred with the Democratic overhaul of our government has been followed with sound and significant political defeats for the Democratic Party and its liberal agenda. This is anything but what “progress” is as it is envisioned by liberals. The

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

country seems to be heading in the opposite direction of President Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Hence, progression in time is not coinciding with a promulgation of liberal values. Many on the left cannot comprehend it. Historically, throughout human history, society has always seemed to evolve in the direction of how they envision society­—so much so that they built a political philosophy that in many fundamental respects is centered around such a notion. Thus, the left has no choice but to attack Sarah Palin, and to continue attacking her. Regardless of what might be said, the reasons for attacking her specifically are matters of convenience.

As was said near the outset, what we do not understand we ridicule. The left does not understand, and cannot given the philosophical tenets out of which they operate, that America is showing evidence of being headed in the other direction than what their progressive values dictate. To objectively discuss the political climate would be to put a dagger through what they believe as liberals even if it is in many cases sub-conscious. For the left to write about the political defeats of the Democratic Party in the last few months would be, for many of them, to operate outside of their very worldview. Thus, they are led by this lack of understanding to caricature. Do not be mistaken, this is not at all something that happens only at Vassar. It is widespread among liberal media outlets. It is by all means a philosophical issue at the hearts of millions who call themselves progressives.

It seems then, and I submit, that constant caricatures and attacks of Sarah Palin, and the larger Tea Party movement, reveal far more about the deep ideology of their attackers then they do about their targets. I cannot be certain, but I have an inclination that Sarah Palin, for all her supposed stupidity, understands this in some way. Her prevalence in the national discourse is certainly a calculated move on her part. For all the jokes being made about Sarah Palin, one has to wonder who is really getting the last laugh. Apparently, this is one joke many liberals do not get.

—Joe Coniglio ’12

February 25, 2010

OPINIONS

Deer culling a thought out and collaborative decision Margaret Ronsheim Guest Columnist

I

n the interest of promoting open dialogue and providing accurate information, I would like to respond to some of the statements made in recent issues of The Miscellany News by critics of the deer cull on the Vassar Ecological Preserve.

Dr. Richard Born, in his recent letter, “Anthony DeNicola and the (White) Buffaloing of Vassar” (2.11.10), implies that the Farm Oversight Committee consulted only Dr. Anthony DeNicola of White Buffalo, Inc. when we were considering all potential methods of deer management. This is incorrect. We spoke with many people, including Ethan Pierce, Deer Management Program Coordinator for the Shawangunk Ridge Biodiversity Partnership and the Mohonk Preserve, and Raymond Winchcombe, Manager of Field Research Facilities at the Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies in Millbrook, both of whom manage deer populations at other local Ecological Preserves. We also invited a number of experts to speak at the College, including Troy Weldy, Director of Ecological Management for The Nature Conservancy in New York, and Dr. Alan Rutberg, Research Assistant Professor of Environmental and Population Health at Tufts University, both of whom are familiar with Vassar. We were particularly interested in consulting with Dr. Rutberg, as he has carried out research on the implementation of immunocontraception in small deer populations (Rutberg et al., 2004). Dr. DeNicola, who has a Ph.D. in wildlife management, has overseen numerous projects on contraception, trap and transfer and hunter training. We hired him as a consultant because he is experienced in all available methods of deer management. Please see the Jan. 28, 2010 Miscellany News article, as well as farm.vassar.edu/comittee/deermanagement/ for details on the various management options we considered.

Dr. Born cites an alleged discrepancy in our calculations of deer density on the Ecological Preserve. We have reported different numbers at different times because we have different deer density estimates from 2004 and 2009; we also have used two ways of calculating deer densities for the Ecological Preserve. One method includes deer on the Ecological Preserve and also in the surrounding area; the other includes only those deer directly on the Preserve. The number of 70 deer per square mile comes from that second, more conservative estimate. It is important to note that these specific numbers are not being used to determine the details of the deer management plan. We are closely monitoring experimental quadrats across the Ecological Preserve to measure deer impact and to determine the effectiveness of the deer management plan in restoring the overall biodiversity of the site. This assessment is critical, as different locations may have different carrying capacities and so management must be based on overall deer impact.

Dr. Born notes that we were unable to hold a third forum in the fall as originally planned. Unfortunately, constraints were placed on us from outside the College.

As soon as we were able, based on our work with local officials, we sent out an all-campus e-mail (Friday, Dec. 4, 2009), followed by two days of informational sessions in the College Center (Monday, Dec. 7, 12 to 3 p.m., and Tuesday, Dec. 8, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.). As classes were ending, we were concerned that few students would attend a more formal presentation and we felt that the combination of an all-campus e-mail and tabling for two days in the College Center was the best way to reach as many members of the Vassar community as possible. Dr. Born was clearly aware of our efforts to talk to people who were concerned about the process, as he was one of

the two people opposed to the deer cull who signed our comment sheets. For the forums held last year, we specifically invited students involved in the Greens, the Sustainability Committee and the Vassar Animal Rights Coalition to attend. Classes in Environmental Studies, Biology and Philosophy have actively engaged students in discussing the issue. When we sent out the all-campus e-mail, we contacted surrounding property owners and reporters at The Poughkeepsie Journal (interview date Dec. 23) in order to let the wider community know about the cull. Cablevision followed up by taping a segment about the deer cull on Dec. 30 that was to be aired the same day. In short, we have tried to be as open and inclusive in this process as possible.

Some deer management opponents have implied that we tried to hide the cull from the students by carrying it out in January.

Our all-campus e-mail and other efforts to communicate in December indicate otherwise. The safety of the many Vassar students and others who use the trails for running, hiking and biking was our primary concern in the timing of the cull.

Ultimately, this controversy is about what we value. Members of the Farm Oversight Committee value all types of living organisms on the Ecological Preserve, including the songbirds, raptors, small mammals, insects, amphibians, reptiles, spiders, trees, shrubs, flowers and fungi. Placing a priority on deer over all other species is short-sighted and damaging to the ecosystem. The decisions we have made have not been easy ones. I believe, however, that the members of our community who visit the Ecological Preserve in the future will see a clear increase in overall biodiversity and health of the ecosystem.

I include a short bibliography below for those interested in learning more about the ecological impacts of deer overabundance. These articles were all published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. (1) Allombert, S, S. Stockton, and J-L. Martin.

2005. A natural experiment on the impact of overabundant deer on forest invertebrates. Conservation Biology 19:1917-1929.

(2) Cote, S.D., T.P. Rooney, J-P. Tremblay, C. Dussault, and D. Waller. 2004. Ecological impacts of deer overabundance. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 35:113-147. (3) Cote, S.D. 2005.

Extirpation of a large black bear population by introduced white-tailed deer.

Conservation Biology 19:1668-1671. (4) DeCalesta, D.S. 1994. Effect of white-tailed deer on songbirds within managed forests in Pennsylvania. The Journal of Wildlife Management 58:711-718. (5) Myers, J.A., M. Vellend, S. Gardescu, and P.L. Marks. 2004.

Seed dispersal by white-tailed deer: implications for long-distance dispersal, invasion, and migration of plants in eastern North America. Oecologia 139:35-44. (6) Pietz, P. and D.A. Granfors. 2000. Whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) predation on grassland songbird nestlings.

The American Midland Naturalist 144:419422. (7) Rooney, T.P., S.M. Wiegmann, D.A. Rogers, and D.M. Waller. 2004. Biotic impoverishment and homogenization in unfragmented forest understory communities. Conservation Biology 18:787-798. (8) Russell, F.L., D.B. Zippen, and N.L. Fowler.

2001. Effects of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on plants, plant populations, and communities: A review. The American Midland Naturalist 146:1-26. (9) Rutberg, A.T., R.E. Naugle, L.A. Thiele, and I.K.M. Liu. 2004. Effects of immunocontraception on a suburban population of white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus.

Biological Conservation 116:243-250. (10) Waller, D.M. and W. S. Alverson. 1997. The white-tailed deer: A keystone herbivore.

Wildlife Society Bulletin. 25:217-228.

—Margaret Ronsheim is an Associate Professor of Biology and a member of the Farm Oversight Committee.

Page 13

Deer cull opponents misinformed Mary Ann Cunningham Guest Columnist

V

assar’s recent deer cull has led to heated opinions and vehement letters, most over the ethical question of why the College should take the lives of deer.

The public enthusiasm for biodiversity on the Vassar Ecological Preserve is an outstanding testament to the importance of that space for the Vassar community and for Poughkeepsie more broadly. Among the various letters to editors, however, what opponents to the cull have not yet made clear is why they feel that deer have more right to survive than do the many species that depend on the Preserve but whose habitat is destroyed by deer.

Ecological studies have shown that deer populations greater than about 10-15 per square mile threaten many species, including plants that used to be on the Vassar Ecological Preserve, including shrub-nesting and ground-nesting birds, as well as amphibians that require a healthy understory. So an overabundance of deer means the death of many other organisms. To defend an overabundance of deer is to declare that deer have more of a right to exist on the Ecological Preserve than these other species do. What puts opponents of culling in a position to make this determination? If they claim to be in favor of living beings, what is the reason for consigning so many to disappear from the Preserve?

Opponents of the cull have used misleading rhetorical strategies to make their cases. They have claimed that the College failed to notify the community, which is false. The public forum I attended last year was packed, and neighbors of the College spoke overwhelmingly in favor of reducing deer counts. Opponents have depicted the College as a large, faceless institution, but this is also false. The decision was made and supported by a

large number of thoughtful people who are concerned about many threatened species that depend on the Preserve for survival. Opponents have criticized the College for not repeating the many ecological studies that have already demonstrated that alternative strategies don’t work. Deer move in family herds, and relocating them puts them into already-occupied territories of other herds. Studies in northern New York have shown that most relocated deer die within a year or two because of competition, isolation from family groups, or lack of familiar hiding places and travel routes. Contraception requires regular and successful treatment and has not worked where it has been tried, and it’s not clear why opponents think the result would be different here than elsewhere. Opponents have even criticized the Committee for being authors on papers on deer abundance—suggesting that the Committee is at fault for studying the problem as well as for not studying it.

Many of us enjoy seeing deer, but we also enjoy seeing birds, spring flowers and butterflies, all of which suffer in a denuded and low-diversity understory. Many of the species that should thrive on the Preserve are declining globally. Deer are probably more abundant than they ever were because they are subsidized by the gardens of residential neighborhoods and because they lack any predators. Opponents of culling need to acknowledge honestly that deer don’t just live peaceably among us; rather they cause tremendous damage to property, vehicles, gardens and biodiversity. And these opponents need to make clear why deer are more important than other species that inhabit the farm, including birds, butterflies, salamanders and spring flowers.

—Mary Ann Cunningham, Associate Professor of Geography

Crossword by Jonathan Garfinkel Dear Puzzlers, First, as you may have noticed, there were a couple of errors in the clues for last week’s puzzle that were probably quite infuriating. Your poor, overworked crossword master is sorry for any undue stress he may have caused. Second, I’d like to use this week’s lack of a crossword to extend the invitation to any member of the Vassar community interested in constructing a crossword to do so and send it in to me.

Puzzles must be on 17x17 square grids.

Send me a completed grid and, if I like it, I will write the clues for it (with your input, of course) and it will be published in The Miscellany News! Send completed grids to Box 1339 with your name and contact information. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all can come up with.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Garfinkel

Answers to last week’s puzzle

Send completed grids to Box 1339

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 13

February 25, 2010

OPINIONS

Highlights from the faculty line-up Kelly Stout

I

Features Editor

n my inner circles there is little doubt that I am the biggest sports fan the world has ever known. Here are my credentials: I am a four time—count ‘em!—winner of my local Little League’s “good attendance at practice” award; I watched almost half of the super bowl this year; and I think it might be real between me and Norwegian men’s downhill skier/total BAMF Aksel Lund Svindal.

Lund Svindal has been called a “super G” by blogger Larry S. who blogs, surely, from his mother’s couch. But the “super Gs” I’m interested in today are the titans of the court who will descend on the Vassar Athletic and Fitness Center tonight for the widely anticipated and much talked/blogged about facultystudent basketball game.

Since its controversial drop of the well-loved “Backpage with Conan O’Brien,” The Miscellany News has hoped extensive and graphically nauseating round the clock coverage of the faculty-student basketball game will draw disgruntled young readers back into the folds of the paper. It has worked so far. Everyone seems to have forgotten the whole controversy ever happened as we gather ‘round to watch Professor of Political Science/Bode Miller lookalike Steve (“Nash”) Rock show us what he’s working with.

My experience with basketball is extensive: I once attended a Golden State Warriors game with my younger brother; my freshman year roommate/

BFFL was a varsity women’s basketball player; and I watched Steve James’ 1994 masterpiece Hoop Dreams three times, and Space Jam a total of four.

But please don’t let my expertise intimidate you. Athletic achievement is the great American unifier and based on the images on the Vassar admissions website, a hallmark—nay, the hallmark—of a Vassar education.

Regular viewers of faculty-student athletic throw downs may be familiar with the fighting force of Team Faculty, but in case you’re not, I thought I’d take the time to list a few favored heroes we can expect to see in fine form tonight. Highlights from the lineup: Bob Brigham: This Professor of History is MAD, but there’s nothing mutual about his brand of assured destruction.

Paul Fenouillet: Fresh out of the department of French and Francophone Studies, he’s about to send a big old coup de pied in the direction of your bout.

Mike Wood: You may have met Security Officer Wood before. Perhaps you were drunk and perhaps you were a little rude? (“Shit man, why you gotta take our keg. We’re registerrrrrrred. I’m belligerent!”)

He’s back with vengeance. Watch out beer-guzzling student rule-breakers!

Tim Koechlin: Of Koechlin, said a player for the student team who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “I am literally trembling with fear at his skillz. Also, I’m afraid he’s not going to like my thesis draft.”

Teresa Garrett: Makin’ up a whopping 25% of the female contingent, this particular statistic begs for a standard

deviation analysis. As in, it deviates from the standard VC male-female ratio. Am I right, ladies? Am I right?

Kiese Laymon: This man will put you on the waitlist. Interactions with this Professor of English are guaranteed to school you, whether you’re trying to beat him on the court or just trying to get into his freshman writing seminar.

Andy Davison: This Professor of Political Science wants to have a hands-on discussion of hegemony, fools!

Annabelle Jones: The queen of the ROC, Jones is back on top after the snowstorm to bring a whole new meaning to the phrase, “locked out.”

Judy Finerghty: Why you gotta live up to a stereotype, Coach Finerghty? Just because you’re an IrishAmerican woman doesn’t mean you have to grow up and become a basketball player.

Quincy Mills: This Professor of aHistory and Africana Studies may have taken Barack Obama’s constitutional law course at the University of Chicago, but Mills brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “supreme the court.”

Chris Roellke: Also known as “the punisher,” The Wesleyan Argus has called the Dean of the College, “A monumental affirmation of human dignity.”

These Apollonian masters represent only a taste of the talent that will surely be unleashed on VC’s own Mount Olympus: the Athletics and Fitness Center. I will see you there, Conan fans!

ADVERTISEMENT

Bummer internships Alanna Okun

I

t’s winter. Winter at Vassar means claustrophobia, phallic snow sculptures and such low temperatures in the Joss House bathrooms that last week I opted not to shower for upwards of 48 hours. And yet, even though we have to trek across the frozen tundra to get to class every morning, summer is at the forefront of our minds. Deadlines for summer positions are weighing down on us like so many bites of an All Campus Dining Center quesadilla. If you haven’t already started your applications, you might as well just pick out a comfy cardboard box to furnish because your dreams of being this generation’s post-ironic answer to Ira Glass are straight up over.

I am not included in this year’s feeding frenzy; I’m not applying for internships or fellowships or any of those other -ships that people seem to be willing to sacrifice virgins over. I’m working at the same day camp where I’ve attended and been a counselor for the past eight years. My job is choice because it’s seven minutes from my house, involves teaching sassy children how to properly execute jazz hands and allows me to get home before naptime (mine, not the kids’). Most of all, though, it means that I get to hold the real world at bay for one more summer. I can barely handle stapling a psychology paper without drawing blood (true story), so why would anyone want to pay me to collate their files? It’s easier and a lot less scary to return to a position where I know exactly what’s expected of me than to submit my resumé to the judgment of total strangers.

The skill set on my resumé, incidentally, is downright laughable. What have I learned as a camp counselor? How to

Weekly Calendar: 2/25 - 3/3 THURSDAY, 2/25

SUNDAY, 2/28

3 p.m. Tea. This week, tea in the Rose will be putting the

12 p.m. Women’s Tennis v. Muhlenberg College. Another

“awesome” in Assam. Rose Parlor.

clash of the athletic titans! What a week! Walker Field House Bays.

7:30 p.m. Student-Faculty Basketball Game. Watch Chris

Roellke relive his glory days on the Wesleyan varsity team.

It promises to be nostalgic and haunting and uplifting. Fitness Center Gymnasium.

guest Rod Blagojavich who “just wanted to dance.” Off Campus.

FRIDAY, 2/26

10 p.m. Potpourri. On the shopping list this week: vintage

3 p.m. Tea. English breakfast. Rose Parlor.

3 p.m. 28th Annual Bardavon Opera House Gala. With special

MONDAY, 3/1 cowboy boots, anti-fungal cream. College Center North Atrium.

8 p.m. Sex Toy Auction. I couldn’t make this up. Faculty Parlor.

3 p.m. Tea. Roiboos (sp???). Rose Parlor.

11 p.m. Europop Mug Night. Dry clean your mesh unitard, bébé, it’s time to party like we’re disenchanted/entitled socialist students at the Sorbonne! The Mug.

SATURDAY, 2/27

3:30 p.m. Protect the Dream Dance Class. For those reject-

ed from VRDT. Keep dancin’ guys, keep dancin’! Ely Hall Aula.

10 p.m. Purim Masquerade Ball. You’re not accountable for

TUESDAY, 3/2

your actions if no one can see your eyes, so go wild. UpCDC.

3 p.m. Tea. Green leaf tips. Rose Parlor.

11 p.m. Happily Ever Laughter (HEL) Show. Guaranteed to

9 p.m. Jazz Night. Get tipsy with some insufferable self-

be the second highbrow masquerade of the night. Susan Stein Shiva Theater.

hating hipsters who are trying desperately to impress one another. The Mug.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Guest Columnist

lead, I guess, as long as the followers are younger than 10.

How to remain level headed in a crisis, like when Peter S. ate a pack of Reeses’ Cups on a dare despite his severe peanut allergy. I’ve also written a 17-minute show entitled “Opposable Thumbs: The Musical,” and I can play a mean round of freeze dance. Other than that, though, I wouldn’t hire me.

I know Vassar students who have already worked for top magazines and newspapers, interned on Wall Street and single-handedly rescued starving Somalian orphans from burning buses. I think I’ve decided on a spacious refrigerator box, but we’ll see how the job market is doing in a few years.

The terrifying and oddly comforting fact about the world right now is that even with job experience up the wazoo, there’s no guarantee any of us will actually get a job.

Grossly overqualified candidates are now applying for less than desirable positions, so the rest of us don’t have a prayer. I learned this the summer after high school when I lost out on a part-time retail job at Victoria’s Secret to a girl who had just graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

I felt worse for her than I did for myself (and in the interest of full disclosure, my undesirability in that case may or may not have been related to an off-color comment I made regarding crotchless panties). So maybe the upshot of this sham of an economy is that we don’t need to freak out about our career trajectories right now.

Maybe it’s okay to travel or lie on the beach or make art out of dried macaroni this summer. More power to you if you can snag a coveted position at some tragically hip art gallery in Brooklyn or at a consulting firm (whatever the hell that is), but I’d argue that there’s no shame in freeze dance.

by Kelly Stout

12 a.m. You realize you have a midterm tomorrow that you haven’t studied for. Bet you wish you hadn’t gone to jazz

night, huh? Thompson Memorial Library.

WEDNESDAY, 3/3 2:30 p.m. Jumpstart Your Internship Workshop. At a cer-

tain point in the year it no longer counts as “jumpstarting.”

Starting next week this event will be called “Why didn’t you jumpstart your internship search? There’s nothing left except a mediocre non-profit openings in suburban Madison, WI.” College Center MPR. 3 p.m. Tea. Earl Grey.

5 p.m. U.S. Peace Corps Info Session. Ah, didn’t get into law school or Teach For America? Come pretend the idea of unrecognizable rashes and digestive disorders, and two years of total isolation appeal to you on a deep level. Faculty Commons.

5 p.m. Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court Panel. Bob

Costas hosts this post-game analysis of court action.

Rocky 200.

ARTS

February 25, 2010

Page 15

VRDT brings unbridled comraderie to Bardavon Thea Ballard Reporter

O

Image courtesy of Jim Mills

nce a year, Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre’s (VRDT) assemblage of pliés and leaps, jazz shoes and ballet slippers, and emotive and technically intensive choreography makes its way from its home in Kenyon Hall to Poughkeepsie’s Bardavon Opera House. An opportunity is created for local dance aficionados to experience their work for the first time and for Vassar students to see it in a new light.

VRDT’s 28th annual Bardavon Gala returns this Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Representing a culmination of a year’s work in VRDT, the two performances will feature a variety of styles, ranging from modern to ballet to Irish step dancing; the sources of choreography vary widely as well, with student and faculty choreographed pieces standing alongside classic repertoire.

After about a semester and a half of performing for an audience predominantly composed of members of the Vassar community in Kenyon’s Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, the opportunity to put on a more public, larger-scale performance at the Bardavon is exciting for dancers and Department of Dance faculty alike. Wrote Sophie Alpern ’10 in an e-mailed statement, “I think performing at the Bardavon [Opera House] gives our performances a much more ‘professional’ feel to them. The Bardavon is a famous, historical theater, and it’s a privilege for us that we have the opportunity to perform there.”

For those who have attended other VRDT performances throughout the year, they can expect something different of this performance; wrote dancer Isabel Vondermuhll ’10 in an e-mailed statement, “First showings, final showings and ModFest are basically ‘test runs’ for these shows.”

The company will perform pieces including “The Shakers,” a modern piece choreographed in the 1930s by Doris Humphrey; “Selections from Griot Dance,” choreographed by Dance Department chair Stephen

Member of Vassar Repertory Theatre Nicole Krenitsky ’11 rehearses for the upcoming 28th annual Bardavon Gala hosted at Poughkeepsie’s historic Bardavon Opera House. VRDT will perform this Saturday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 28 at 3 p.m.

Rooks; and “Exurgency,” a piece by local dance company Solas An Lae that is influenced by Irish step dancing. Additionally, David Berkey’s “Sentinel” will be performed by four of the company’s male dancers.

“It’s really stretched and challenged our men,” said Professor of Dance and Director of VRDT John Meehan Meehan, “and it’s a very beautiful piece. It’s about the passing of the torch, moving onto the next generation. It’s very poignant at the end when two dancers walk off into the future, and two are left on stage in the present…It’s unusual for men in that it’s a very quiet piece. It’s almost elegiac or reflective.”

Additionally, audience members can expect a special treat with the performance of famed choreographer George Balanchine’s ballet “Valse-Fantaisie.” Wrote Vondermuhll, “Dancing his ballets is an honor and a privilege, not just because it is such a pleasure and often

an incredibly moving experience, but because not everyone is allowed to dance his ballets whenever they please. Only a certain number of people, who belong to the Balanchine Trust, are allowed to stage his ballets in order to protect the integrity of his choreography.” Additionally, Merrill Ashley, a famed ballerina who worked with Balanchine, staged the piece with VRDT dancers.

“It was really a wonderful experience for our dancers to learn the piece from someone who is so wellknown and so remarkable,” said Meehan about this opportunity.

For Vondermuhll, the chance to dance this piece is particularly special; as a young student at the New York City Ballet, she danced in productions of his pieces and speaks almost rapturously of the experience. “I remember being 12 years old and dancing his last ballet, ‘Mozartiana,’ at Lincoln Center, and the combination of the choreog-

raphy and the music made me feel like I had reached another plane, the sublime maybe, and it brought tears to my eyes while on stage,” she said. “That’s when I knew that I had to dance, which is why I will continue dancing as a professional after I graduate.”

However, not every senior dancer will continue after graduation, adding an emotional edge to the intensity of the Bardavon performance.

“There’s usually a lot of crying going on backstage because for many, this will be the last time they ever dance on stage,” wrote Vondermuhll.

She added: “Maybe I’ll be sobbing like a male figure skater and kissing the ice.”

In addition to this impressive lineup of existing repertoire, student choreography was unusually wellreceived this year; the work of seven student choreographers has been incorporated into this performance, including modern and jazz pieces.

“Usually what happens is there’s an adjudication process and only some of the works done by the students are included in the Bardavon performances,” said Meehan. “This year, a number of faculty said these were the strongest choreographic offerings we’ve ever had... It was impossible to cut one because they’re all so strong.” Consequently, different groups of student work can be seen at each performance, meaning that in order to catch it all, one must purchase tickets to both nights.

For all of the dancers, from freshmen to seniors, a sense of caring and camaraderie amongst the intensity of preparations makes carrying out this performance a unique experience. Thomas Hochla ’13 described some of the ways dancers prepare for the event: “We have Bardavon buddies…You get a small gift from the person, and you don’t know who it is. You’re all there forever, and you have these little gifts from people, and you don’t know who it is.” He added, “[We get] advice for staying sane: bring layers of clothing, not hurting yourself, making sure you got the extensions on the papers and also to just not psych yourself out too much, not think about it in a way that is going to be detrimental.”

Added Vondermuhll, “We have this saying, ‘Be good to each other’—it’s something you will hear dancers saying during company meetings as the show approaches.

You would never hear people say that in a professional company. It’s kind of nice.”

And all of the build-up to the show, according to Meehan, leads to a striking level of vigor in the result.

“By the time Saturday night comes, we’re a bottle of champagne whose cork is bursting,” he said. “There’s a lot of energy that’s really ready to pour forth. The exciting thing about the Bardavon is you get a sense of the unlimited energy of youth, both on the stage and also from the audience…It’s very different from other dance performances because of that bottled-up energy that just explodes on Saturday and Sunday.”

Play addresses social catastrophe of the Black Plague Esther Clowney

T

Reporter

broken down, and people take their own rights back. It’s a personal revolution, and the body represents that.

What is completely yours? How do you escape the horror?” asked Flint, before answering herself: “The orgasm is a revolution. So is dreaming.”

Faba, who designed the show’s set and lighting, thinks that the play’s political message is secondary to its beauty as a piece of literature. “Wallace’s language verges on poetry,” he said. The one-room set Faba designed and built for the Powerhouse Theater is meant to be somewhat anachronistic. The house, while designed in a 1665 Tudor style, is constructed of sheets of heavy plastic, and the white and blue tile floor looks like linoleum for a reason.

“The play represents a lot about the modern day, and I wanted to reflect that,” said Faba.

All five members of the ensemble cast will be in full period costumes, but the disquieting nature of the play evades association with any particular time period. The fear of apocalypse inhabits us all, excepting those of us who hope for it instead.

To quote Wallace, “Lust in his limbs and rust in his skin/ A bear without and a worse beast within.”

Image courtesy of One Flea Spare

he Black Plague reduced the world’s population from 450 million to 350 million and catalyzed major social, economic and religious upheavals in 15th-century Europe. Naomi Wallace’s “One Flea Spare,” set in the midst of this catastrophe, grapples with what happens when the world as one knows it completely falls apart. “‘One Flea Spare’ illuminates harsh reality in the midst of metaphor and gesture,” said Carly Flint ’10, who is directing the upcoming production of the play. The show, which goes up on Thursday, Feb. 25 and closes the following Saturday, is the thesis project of four Vassar drama majors: Flint, Deadria Harrington ’10, Christine Hottinger ’10 and Mike Faba ’10.

“Naomi Wallace’s plays have a social conscience,” said Talaya Delaney, a Post Doctoral Fellow of Drama who is well acquainted with Wallace’s work. “She looks at how we function via class and under capitalism.”

Wallace wrote “One Flea Spare” after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, comparing the excessive individuation produced by the plague with

the social unease of the riots. The play takes place in the home of a wealthy couple who has spent several weeks barricaded inside for fear of disease. Two characters penetrate the fortress: a 12-year-old girl named Morse and a lusty sailor named Bunce, played by Andrew Massey ’12.

“The play opens and closes on a young girl, and in a sense we are seeing the world through her eyes,” said Delaney. “It’s interesting that the story is told from the perspective of someone who is conventionally powerless in society. By putting Morse in this role, Naomi Wallace is actually imbuing her with influence.”

The play is thematically dense, combining ideas of individual empowerment and class dissolution with concerns of the flesh, in terms of both sex and sickness. The woman of the house, Mrs. Stillgrave (played by Harrington) is horribly covered with burns, and the sailor bears a literal wound in his side that never heals.

“Wallace doesn’t ignore the fact that plays consist of bodies on a stage. She uses them,” said Faba, the show’s production designer.

“In the midst of chaos, class is

Drama majors Carly Flint ’10, Deadria Harrington ’10, Christine Hottinger ’10 and Mike Faba ’10 put on Naomi Wallace’s “One Flea Spare” for their senior project.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ARTS

Page 16

Kaleidoscope lectures offer varied views David Lopez Reporter

S

Levine ’88 discusses career as game developer Jillian Scharr

K

News Editor

en Levine ’88, developer of the critically acclaimed video game BioShock, spoke at a panel as part of Vassar College’s 10th annual No Such Convention on Saturday, Feb. 20. Before his talk, The Miscellany News sat down with Levine to talk about his Vassar days, his career and the creative process behind his games.

Although gaming opportunities at Vassar in the pre-Internet ’80s were limited, Levine still found opportunities to play while at college.

There were several arcade games in the College Center Multi-Purpose Room, he recalls, including Commando and Ikari Warriors, and he played several computer games, including Dark Castle, on his Mac. Levine. a drama major, wrote “a ton” of plays while at Vassar and produced several with the Philaletheis society. He also held a campus job with Computing and Information Services. “Basically everything I did professionally came from here one way or another,” said Levine.

After graduation, Levine worked briefly as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, then “drifted around for a couple of years,” writing plays and doing computer consulting work. In 1995 he got a job at Looking Glass Studios where he developed Thief: The Dark Project, a 1998 computer game with innovative stealth mechanics that went on to define the action-adventure genre, and System Shock, of which BioShock is considered the “spiritual successor.” After a few years, Looking Glass Studios fell into financial difficulties and eventually went out of business; Levine and several other former employees left the company to found Irrational Games, where the team started work on the game BioShock.

The story of BioShock’s develop-

ment began with a location: an underwater city. “I like building worlds that are very self-contained,” as opposed to games that are, for example, “set in New York City, where you feel like you should be able to go to New Jersey but you can’t.” So Levine began with the idea of a modern-day Atlantis, called Rapture in the finished work, then proceeded to ponder “why on earth would there be an underwater city?” The answer: to establish a utopia completely removed from the modern world.

Utopian and dystopian narratives such as George Orwell’s novel 1984 and the film Logan’s Run were an initial source of inspiration for the game. “Can you make a perfect society?” Levine asked. “[Novelist Ayn] Rand wrote about it in Atlas Shrugged…I thought about what would happen if you really tried to do it.” Discussing Randian objectivism, Levine observed, “like all ideas, as soon as they hit reality they work out differently. In [Rand’s] books they all work out perfectly.”

Video games as a medium are fundamentally different from other forms of storytelling. “You have to be very humble as a writer to work in video games,” said Levine. “If you just want to tell a story and have people go and watch it, you might as well go make a movie.”

In Atlas Shrugged, main character John Galt delivers a lengthy speech advocating for Randian objectivist philosophy; in BioShock, antagonist Andrew Ryan’s “John Galt speech” takes place during the 30-second bathysphere ride down to Rapture, said Levine.

Levine spoke about video games’ ability as a medium to incorporate nonlinear environmental storytelling. In BioShock, “visually the story’s being told all over” via details such as grand statues of “god-men”

flirckr.com

tare at a painting long enough, and the number of questions that arise in your head about what you are viewing will be in the hundreds. Vassar’s new art lecture series, Kaleidoscope: Interdisciplinary Views of Art, seeks to provide a multifaceted answer to some of these questions wih the perspectives of faculty from varying academic fields. Many of us are not at liberty to overhear the interesting conversations the faculty have about a piece of art.

This new series will give us the opportunity to eavesdrop on these fascinating discourses. The first installment to kick off the Kaleidoscope series will be an event entitled “Adèle Romany and Female Accomplishments in 19th-century France,” on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) Print Room.

Diane Butler, The Andrew W. Mellon Coordinator of Academic Affairs, began thinking of the series through conversations with faculty members. A collaborative process was soon at work to introduce a fresh and innovative idea that would incorporate different faculty members with shared interests in artwork. “The process is fairly organic. A possible artwork emerges through conversations with faculty— perhaps two professors have requested to teach with an object without knowing that the other shares their interest in art,” wrote Butler in an e-mailed statement. She went on to explain that on a classroom level, professors incorporate artwork to further develop or teach themes relevant to their course.

Since Thursday marks the first KaSee KALEIDOSCOPE on page 17

February 25, 2010

Ken Levine ’88, pictured above, reflects on his time at Vassar College and his career as a video game developer. Levine spoke at No Such Convention on Feb. 20. extolling the “sort of Randian idea… [that] man is God, basically,” juxtaposed with “people spray-painting graffiti on the wall with some kind of political message.” This became the “hallmark of the BioShock games— telling the story in the world as much as you can,” said Levine. “Ten years ago that wasn’t possible because you just didn’t have the rendering power.”

Irrational Games was in dire financial straits until the various video game publishers took interest; occasionally, Levine and the other founders cut into their own salaries to keep the company afloat. “[Irrational Games] didn’t have a

pot to piss in,” said Levine, until the founders sold the company to publisher Take-Two Interactive in January 2006 and proceeded to release Bioshock for the PC and Xbox in August 2007. Since then, BioShock has won numerous awards for its story and writing, and has even won “Game of the Year” awards from Spike TV and Game Informer. As of summer 2009, it has sold approximately 3 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video games for the Xbox 360.

Levine declined to talk about Irrational Games’ new project. But, he assured The Miscellany News, “It’s cool. It’s super cool.”

Orchestra concert features trio of student soloists Erik Lorenzsonn

D

Arts Editor

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

elilah, the seductress of the biblical strongman Samson, sings of her lover in Camille Saint-Saëns’ opera “Samson and Delilah:” “My brothers fear his wrath; I alone, among all, I bravely hold him in my lap!” So translates the libretto from one of the opera’s dramatic arias, “Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse” (Love! Just help my weakness). The piece is one that mezzo-soprano Gail Nakano ’10 has come to love because of the character’s depth.

“The piece I’m singing is a really great piece for mezzo,” said Nakano.

“It’s a very juicy character, so it’s really fun to sing.”

Nakano will perform the aria at the upcoming Vassar College Orchestra concert on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. in Skinner Hall of Music, which will feature three finalists from the Music Department’s annual concerto competition, held this year on Nov. 30. The competition asks for classical vocalists and musicians alike to audition solo material, the best of which will be featured in both spring orchestra concerts. Nakano was one of the finalists; the other two finalists who will perform on Saturday are Will Healy ’12, who will be performing “Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and mezzo-soprano Ashley Alter ’10, who will be singing a different selection from Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Delilah.”

Healy’s piano performance carries heavy personal weight. “I’m really excited to play with the orchestra,” said

Mezzo-soprano Gail Nakano ’10 rehearses alongside the Vassar College Orchestra on Sunday, Feb. 21, in preparation for an upcoming concert in Skinner Hall of Music on Saturday, Feb. 27, at 8 p.m. The concert will be cast live via the web.

Healy. “I had a performance-related injury in high school and haven’t really been playing since. I’d been working really hard on this concerto to get it ready for the competition.”

The piano concerto Healy has finessed will be a perfect complement to a program replete with Romantic Era music. “It is a really incredible piece,” said Healy of the concerto. “It’s very romantic. During [Mozart’s] classical period, he was doing some really passionate melodies and harmonic changes. He could really write concertos in

minor keys very well.”

The third solo will be Alter’s aria from Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Delilah,” titled “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix,” (My heart opens to your voice).

The highly popular song is also from the perspective of Delilah, this time as she attempts to wheedle information from Samson as to the source of his strength. “They are both romantic arias,” said Lecturer in Music Eduardo Navega, who serves as the orchestra’s conductor, on the two Saint-Saëns solos. “It has all to do with seduction.

The melodies are very full, and very rich.”

In addition to the two arias, the orchestra will play an energetic piece from Saint-Saëns’ opera “Dance Bacchanale.” “It was almost a coincidence really,” said Navega on the quantity of Saint-Saëns pieces in the concert.

“Two of the winners of the competition were singing arias of the same opera. And that opera happened to have a nice orchestral interlude as well, a dance.”

The dance provides a nice counter

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to the intensity of the two arias says Healy. “It’s a very exciting piece to play; it’s very upbeat,” said the soloist, who also plays trumpet with the orchestra.

The second half of the concert will be comprised of the “Samson and Delilah” arias and dance; the first half will feature the Mozart concerto, along with another operatic piece by Carl Maria von Weber. The overture from von Weber’s “Der Freischütz” is a technically challenging composition that is laden with many of the themes from the famous composer’s score.

“We usually open with an easier piece to warm up the orchestra,” said Navega about the Weber Overture.

“This piece is actually hard. For the strings, it is especially complicated.

But the students seem very excited about it.”

Both Weber and Saint-Saëns are composers from the Romantic Era of music, which in part means that their music was influenced by folk culture.

“Der Freischütz” was actually the first successful opera to incorporate elements of folklore and the supernatural, making it one of the most important pieces of its era. Romantic music is also considered to be one of the most emotional eras in terms of music, another trend that should be observable for the concert.

Navega added that in case the weather is uncooperative, there are other means by which people can enjoy the concert’s offerings. “The concert is webcast live,” said Navega. “In case there is a storm, people can decided to watch it from home!”

February 25, 2010

ARTS

Page 17

Webner finds inspiration across varied disciplines Connor O’Neil

M

Guest Reporter

Katie De Heras/The Miscellany News

ost artists start their careers displaying their art in galleries that double as refrigerator doors. Exhibition spaces get a bit more selective after the third grade, but those who continue to refine their ninja turtle drawings get the opportunity to display their work to a wider audience. One such artist, Russell Webner ’11, is preparing to showcase his work along with three other artists at the Palmer Gallery.

The show is entitled This the Range and Recent and features work by Webner, Rhys Bambrick ’11, Joseph Redwood-Martinez ’11 and Charlie Warren ’10. “It’s a collaborative effort,” says Webner. “It deals with the role of media in our lives. It’s a modern take on the way we make our art.”

And for Webner, making art is about the process. “I find it to be a lot more fruitful if the process defines the piece in some way. I think of each painting as a kind of journey.”

As a freshman, Webner arrived at Vassar planning on majoring in art history. Having taken an art history course in high school, he thought he had found his calling. But after having enrolled in both Introduction to Art History and Introduction to Drawing in his first year, he came to the realization that he would rather practice art than study it. “I found out quickly that I wanted to make my own art,” states Russell. He was taken by the process of art in a college setting, the critiques and the close relationships with professors. “I thought it was great,” said Russell.

It is not only the art classes that have kickstarted his creativity. Webner has spent the last several semesters taking history and creative writing classes that he says deeply inform his

art and vision. Focusing on Cold War America in his history classes, Webner is fascinated by the cultural resonance of the period. “It was such an interesting time, so filled with mystery.

Finding out what those times are about is the key to a lot of the problems we are facing today.”

As for the composition classes, Webner enjoys the challenge of rendering his impressions in words: “Writing really extends my creativity in painting, and painting really extends my creativity in writing. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.” He identifies the ability to see shrewdly as the secret to succeeding in art.

Webner not only explores the world outside of his major, but he also experiments within it by taking on a variety of media. “I’m primarily a painter, but I’ve studied drawing, printmaking and sculpture.” Having taken a particular shine to printmaking, Webner will display both prints and paintings in the upcoming Palmer Gallery show. One can also expect to find prints from Rhys Bambrick, sculptures from Charlie Warren and contemporary pieces by Joseph Redwood-Martinez.

Several of Webner’s contributions to the show relate to technology, specifically video games. “They are figural, which is nice. Drawing the figure is the foundation for all art, so I like to incorporate that into my work as much as possible,” said Russell.

Another foundation of Russell’s art is music.

“It’s a must in the studio,” he says. “I get a great sense of color when I listen to music. It’s almost like I’m painting my visualizations of the music.”

Russell’s work will be displayed in This the Range and Recent, opening on Feb. 24 and continuing until March 4 in the Palmer Gallery. The opening reception will take place on Feb. 25.

Russell Webner ’11 is presenting his artwork alongside Rhys Bambrick ’11, Joseph Redwood-Martinez ’11 and Charlie Warren ’10 at the Palmer Gallery exhibit entitled This the Range and Recent starting Feb. 24.

Professors share opinions on Romany family portrait KALEIDOSCOPE continued from page 16 leidoscope event, its format is unprecedented, but there is a goal for the series to avoid resembling current art history lectures. As Butler wrote, “[The professors] are not expected to be art historians; we want them to look at art from the perspective of a historian, an English professor or a scientist.”

For the upcoming Romany event, the speakers will include Associate Professor of History Mita Choudhury, Associate Professor of French Susan Hiner, Drama Lecturer and Costume Designer Holly Hummel, Associate Professor of Music Kathryn Libin, Associate Professor of English Susan Zlotnick and Butler herself. The lecturers will use PowerPoint and short presentations to discuss the artwork during the first half of the event. “It gives audience members an opportunity to hear cross-disciplinary conversations that take place all the time at a liberal arts college,” wrote Butler. “Perhaps it’s a bit like being a fly on the wall at a dinner party where guests all share their expertise on a painting hanging nearby.”

This specific event will revolve around the “Portrait of the Artist’s Family in Front of the Château de Juilly, îsle de France (1804)” by Adéle Romany. It will highlight the achievements of female artists in France during the 19th century and the social conventions expected of women during this time. “Beautifully executed by a female artist, the painting depicts objects that suggest what was expected of young women in 19th-century France: to be accomplished in music and needlework, to be well-read, well-dressed

and graceful,” wrote Butler. The portrait is a recent acquisition to the FLLAC’s permanent collection.

Once the mini-lectures given by Diane Butler and the five Vassar professors conclude, student vocalists will perform solos in tune with the event’s theme. Adjunct Artist in Music Robert Osborne has selected and prepared the music and musicians. As people view the works on display in the galleries, the musicians will perform late 18thcentury pieces in period dress and clothing.

The vocalists will include Maria Brosgol ’12, Sarah Cantor ’10, Charles O’Malley ’11 and Michael Hofmann ’13. The accompaniment will be provided by pianist Nicholas Rocha ’11 and harpist Jeannie Chenette. “Music was very much a bonus for this Kaleidoscope. It made sense because the artist foregrounds a piano in the painting,” added Butler in the emailed statement. “The students will be singing songs that would have been performed in the type of setting depicted in the painting— sentimental parlor songs.”

By the end of the event, visitors will have heard a range of perspectives given by different faculty members. The increasing use of artwork in classrooms is a testament to the innovative and interesting ideas Kaleidoscope is trying to establish. In time, the series that debuts tonight may become a staple in the fusion of art and academics here at Vassar. People who are intrigued by art and music will appreciate this event and will surely leave feeling a little bit more intelligent and with a few of their more boggling questions answered.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ADVERTISEMENT

ARTS

Page 18

February 25, 2010

New Hot Chip album falls short of past work One Life Stand Hot Chip [No Sleep Records] “As of recently, 30 Rock.”

Tali Swisher ’10

“I just began watching Dawson’s Creek, season one”

Rebecca Fournier ’11

“I’ve been watching reruns of Bones.”

Patricia Szeto ’13

S

omething happened to Hot Chip on their last record, Made In The Dark. Their breakout record, The Warning, struck that perfect balance between dance and pop where the beats don’t overpower the hooks and vice versa. But in Made In The Dark, the balance was noticeably slanted towards pop.

Not that this was a bad thing—I’d say that Made In The Dark is the superior record— but it’s hard not to cock your head a little bit when a band known for jaunty, analog keyboards decides to start making Beatlesesque piano ballads. Luckily for Hot Chip, this shift suited their band dynamic quite well. Unlike most electro-pop projects, Hot Chip is actually a band—with five members who can play every sound on the record and can put on a good live show. In addition, primary vocalist Alexis Taylor has the kind of soft, soulful voice that could only come from a British schoolboy. It seemed as if Hot Chip had been prime for this shift all along; they were only waiting to mature as musicians.

On their new record, One Life Stand, Hot Chip has decided to take this progression even further. Though there are plenty of taut drum machine beats, there are just as many mellow, slow building tracks. And for every screechy, squealy piece of electronic noise, there’s a piano, rhodes organ or a violin to match up. As with Made In The Dark, One Life Stand seems to fit Hot Chip’s

strength’s perfectly; I’ve always had the suspicion that there’s more of a Brit-pop influence in these guys than they’d probably like to admit. But unlike Made In The Dark, One Life Stand seems to take this progression too far, and honestly, it lags under the weight of the heavy, heartfelt songs they’ve decided to start writing. There’s a reason why everyone hates Coldpay; it’s because all that sap and shameless pop bravado gets annoying after a while. And without enough dance-y energy, Hot Chip has started to slide down that slippery slope themselves.

To be fair, there’s plenty to like on One Life Stand. This is the fourth record in a row that Hot Chip has released with at least a sampling of superlative songs. I don’t know what it is about these guys, but they always come through with an ideal synth line or a refrain that can be repeated ad nauseam without getting old. Opener “Thieves In The Night,” with its slowly building layers of synth and its unforgettable vocal hook, captures that classic mix of danceability and listenability that Hot Chip does so well. The second track, “Hand Me Down Your Love,” might be the album’s true standout. The verse features a beautifully rhythmic piano progression, while the chorus blooms into a heart-wrenching, violin-laden symphony of Brit-pop glory.

This happy medium doesn’t last long. Too often on the record, songs slip into the territory of the boring and the unnecessarily melancholy. “Slush,” which goes on about three minutes longer than it should, has a waltz-like beat and a sound that matches its unflattering name. Closing track “Take It In,” despite its joyous, choir-worthy refrain,

seems to go far too close to Coldplay’s style of heavily slathered saccharine.

Considering this dichotomy between electro-pop glory and slow burning mush, you would think that something on One Life Stand would have to tip the record in one direction or the other. And that something is the lyrics. Taylor and his deeper-voiced counterpart Joe Goddard aren’t the world’s best lyricists, but they have been known to be witty and surprising from time to time.

On One Life Stand, however, they’re content to simply say “love” a hundred times and call it a day. From “Brothers:” “It’s a wild love I have/ It’s a wild love that I have.” Or this from “Slush:” “With songs to remember/ remember my love is with you.” And lets not even talk about “Hand Me Down Your Love,” which—despite its near perfection—is mostly comprised of the phrases “Hand me down your love” and “Open up your love” repeating until the song ends. Don’t get me wrong, sentimentality is not a bad thing, especially for this type of pop music. But One Life Stand is completely void of creativity when it comes to the lyrics. Even the album’s title is a little cheesy, even if it is a clever pun (and trust me, I normally love puns).

For a band like Hot Chip, who is usually supernaturally consistent, one mediocre record isn’t the end of the world. And for anyone out there who’s interested in the band, I’d highly recommend Made In The Dark as a good starting point. But on One Life Stand, Hot Chip has fallen slightly off the track.

—Martin Bergman ’12 is a Jewish studies major writing a bi-weekly column on recently released albums.

Joss showcase gives bands jamming outlet Rachael Borné

“I’ve been watching the Olympics, but then again I guess everybody has.”

A

“[Last Monday], I went to see Valentine’s Day.”

Brittany Parks ’12

“I’ve been watching this TV show called Skins.”

Devon Isakow ’13 —Carrie Hojnicki, Arts Editor

Image courtesy of Michelle Donnelly

Andres Posada ’10

Reporter

sk most musicians at Vassar and they’ll tell you that campus bands get the short end of the stick. A single sound system is shared by the entire campus, limiting the number of shows possible at one time. Plus, band practice space is almost nonexistent. Matthew’s Mug is notoriously overbooked and inconveniently located, and practices held in dorm basements often result in noise complaints. To counter these unfortunate shortcomings, a new trend has taken off on campus—dorm-hosted concerts.

Last Friday night, Josselyn House Parlor was the place to be. Furniture was cleared and rugs rolled away, transforming the room into a dance haven perfect for foot tappin’, hip swingin’ and even a little moshing. Many of the musicians featured in the show hail from Josselyn, allowing for an event that literally brought it all back home.

Michelle Donnelly ’11, Vice President of Josselyn House and mastermind behind the Joss Band Showcase, described the event as “intimate and friendly.” Unlike various events at the Mug, which tend to attract a certain crowd, the Joss Showcase drew a very eclectic audience. “I wanted to have an event for the bands that have formed among [Josselyn] residents, an event that would make their bands more known to the outer campus community,” she said.

Jordan Kaye ’12 is a Josselyn House resident and member of both Giant Man Band and Sir Saturn and the Neptones, two of the performing bands. He vouched for the advantages of a dorm-sponsored show: “Obviously [the] set-up is really simple, and there’s less to worry about logistically. If one of us wants to take it real easy or if there’s a problem, the show usually happens as planned: with a crowd, a space and a wall of devastating sound,” he explained.

Most everything was smooth sailing; however, for up and coming band, The Seasons, some improvisational jamming was in order.

When Mara Connors ’13 unexpectedly caught

Student bands perform in Josselyn House on Feb. 19 in the Joss Band Showcase. The event featured such on-campus original groups as Sir Saturn and the Neptunes and the Giant Man Band. a case of laryngitis, the group was left without their lead vocalist. But, as they say: The show must go on. Noah Zaccaglini ’13 filled in on the keyboards, while band members Sam Wagner ’13 and Jon Gorman ’13 put together some last minute tunes.

“We had literally not played a single one of the songs we played that night together before.

We were just trying to have some fun while being mildly entertaining,” Gorman said. The group played mostly covers, allowing for some spontaneous audience sing-alongs and a very laid-back atmosphere.

Giant Man Band, the second group to play, stayed true to its name with both a giant sound and a big attitude. “We thought it would be good to start out set with a meandering jam, something that could get people vibing and moving around. We built from that with a couple of up-temp funk and blue-grass tunes,” said

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

bassist Kaye.

The crowd went wild for the band’s improvisational sections. “I thrashed through [the crowd] a couple of times,” said Kaye, “hoping to snag a dance partner for me and the bass, which turned out to be a pretty hilarious time.”

Sir Saturn and the Neptones rounded off the evening with their brand of surf rock: “It’s a mixture of 1960s California bands and more punky vibes. We try to play really loud,” explained the group’s lead man Raffi Radna ’12. Portions of the crowd were appropriately dressed as beach babes and surfer dudes for the occasion (also attributable to the beach-themed party Radna had thrown pre-concert), and by the time Sir Saturn took the stage they were in a dancing frenzy—jumping, moshing and booty shaking like nobody’s business. Radna, decked out in swim trunks and shades, played with one goal in mind: “to spread the surf.”

February 25, 2010

SPORTS

Page 19

Basketball teams wrap Shannon wows competition at states up seasons Mitchell Gilburne

Assistant Sports Editor

Andy Marmer

T

Sports Editor

T

Courtesy of Sports Information

he moment when a swimmer cuts through the chlorinated air and into the blue is the moment in which swimmer extraordinaire, Caroline Shannon ’12, thrives.

Shannon calls this the “oh my gosh element” of her sport. This is the time when she explains, “I turn everything off and trust my instincts. Not everything revolves around a specific time, everything revolves around the training and mindset you are in the moment you get up on the block and dive into the pool.” It is this clarity of mind that allowed Shannon to place in the top 16 of every event at the New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association Championships in Syracuse, N.Y. this past weekend.“I was especially happy to make it back to finals top 16 in every event this year.”

Shannon reflected on her achievements in an e-mailed statement, “Last year, I didn’t make it back [in] the 200m and so one of my goals was to do so this year, and I did precisely that.” Interim Coach Paul Kueterman adds, “She was tremendous for our relays.

I think she’ll be able to take the experience from this year’s championship and have a great junior year.”

One might think such laudable performances could only come naturally to a demigod; however, through quick-witted strategy, Shannon manages to swim circles around the competition with the grace of a sea nymph and the poise of Poseidon. When speaking of strategy, Shannon maintains that it is of paramount importance to maintain one’s speed for the entire race. She offers, “A lot of girls know how to sprint, but finishing it the way you start is what determines a race.” Shannon also contributes some slightly satirical yet useful tactical information noting, “I’m smaller than most other girls, so I can ride their wake and be like ‘so you think you’re going to beat me? Well, not going to happen!’”

While this “smack talk” might inspire a gig-

Caroline Shannon ’12, member of the Vassar women’s swimming and diving team, competes at the New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association Championships hosted by Le Moyne College. gle or two, Caroline’s discipline is no laughing matter. Coach Kueterman elaborates on the sheer depth of Shannon’s discipline and ability: “She knows who her opponents are in every race and how to prepare herself in order for maximum performance. She’s able to take experience from previous races and apply that to the upcoming competition.” He continues his praises by remarking on Shannon’s ability to course correct mid-race, “I know she’s very aware of what’s happening in her races and how to make adjustments to her stroke during competition in order for best performance.”

Shannon’s career has been an evolution, and she carries her entire swimming history with her every time she enters the water. Although she firmly considers herself a Vassar swimmer, Shannon cannot disregard the time she spent cultivating her sport with her club team since the age of 13. Shannon feels that each race is a challenge to uphold the honor

of both her current team and the teams she has left behind. “I say I have a reputation to live up to,” she explains, “I have the reputation of my club to uphold.” Drawing inspiration from coaches both past and present, Caroline swims each individual lap with a concern for the representation of her team at the forefront of her mind.

A swimming race is not just a sprint from point A to point B. It is an undersea symphony of mental and physical functions fluidly combining to propel any waterlogged Brewer to victory. Shannon explains that every time she prepares to compete, she always thinks, “Maybe this will be the meet,” holding herself to the highest standards. Although she is pleased with her performance this past weekend, Shannon believes that that oh-so-special illusive meet is still just over the horizon, teasing her to swim just a few strokes further and push herself just a little bit harder.

To Tiger Woods: I just don’t care I

just don’t care. I sat through all 14 minutes of the Tiger Woods apology not once, but twice this week. I listened as he apologized for having an affair, as he beat his chest claiming he had done wrong and as he lashed out at the media for implying that there was domestic violence in his house. What did I get from my 28 minutes of observation? Honestly? Nothing. I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to superstar athletes’ private lives, I simply couldn’t care less anymore.

Tiger Woods’ extra-marital affairs have been in the headlines for weeks, the hot topic in a sports world that has otherwise been pretty much scandal-free recently. His public apology and his move away from the golfing spotlight is now the key headline across all media, but my only question is, “Why?” The argument usually stems from the fact that we somehow hold our athletes in high regard and that they are examples for our children. It’s why we come down so hard on them when they transgress, and why we call for blood anytime there is a “scandal,” or at least that’s how we excuse our behavior. When it comes to these athletes’ private lives, we hypocritically expect high-moral standing, as if that in any way has anything to do with the status that was conferred onto them for their completely unrelated feats in athletics.

That’s why when Marion Jones admits to

having used steroids, we bash on her unapologetically, send her to jail, strip her of her medals and humiliate her, completely forgetting that it was because of those steroids that we hailed her as a national hero and an example for all. In our minds, Jones wronged us. She lied to us. She’s somehow now evil, and we somehow now feel betrayed. Of course, had we not found out that she used steroids—or if we had just simply refused to believe it as we do with Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis—then much like Lewis, Jones would have remained an American icon. After all, we don’t forgive steroid users, we cut them down, we bash them and we put little asterisks all over their accomplishments, right Barry Bonds? Unless of course they happen to come back and have a good season, helping the Yankees win the World Series, but Alex Rodriguez is a special case, right?

Anyone else smelling the hypocrisy? We love to repeat to each other that story about how athletes, and anyone involved in athletics, are expected to be held to high standards, but really is there any truth in it?

Just look at some of the most famous sports figures in the world today. We can start with TNT sports announcer Marv Albert, a man who we all listen to and love. He’s thought of as an icon in the sports-casting world, but Albert has a dirty little secret we’ve all somehow

forgotten. In 1997, Albert was charged with felony charges for forced sodomy against a 42-year old woman with whom he had had a 10-year sexual relationship. He pleaded guilty to assault and battery, leading to the sodomy charge being dropped. However, this convicted criminal today remains in the public spotlight, much like Michael Vick. But that’s all in the past, Albert made his amends, we can forgive and forget, right? In the meantime, Tiger Woods needs to apologize, because how dare he mess up in his private life. Athletes have a responsibility, even more so than sportscasters do.

After all, it’s not like Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson, possibly the two most iconic sports figures of the late 20th century, have ever transgressed. Well, not quite, you see.

When Magic Johnson admitted to being HIV positive in 1991, he also admitted that he had had multiple unprotected extra-marital affairs, sometimes with several women at a time. Michael Jordan, on the other hand, holds the record for one of the highest divorce settlements ever, $168 million, after he and ex-wife Juanita Vanoy split in 2006. They had previously filed for divorce in 2002 after allegations of Jordan’s infidelity with two women, one of who filed a paternity suit against him, also in 2006. What was the result for Johnson and Jordan? Well, See TRANSGRESSIONS on page 20

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

his weekend the men’s and women’s basketball teams concluded their 2009-2010 seasons. The men’s team finished the season 2-23 (0-14 in Liberty League play), while the women went 9-15 (5-9 in League games).

The men’s basketball team started the season off with a 78-66 win over Endicott College, thanks in large part to a career-high 37 points from guard Caleb McGraw ’12. In their next outing, on Nov. 20, McGraw and forward John Donnelly ’13 each scored 18, with center Chris Whitney ’11 notching a career-high 12 rebounds to lead Vassar to the finals of its tip-off tournament against then no. 5 Richard Stockton College, a game the Brewers would drop 91-62.

Following Vassar’s hot start, the team often found itself outmatched by larger opponents and dropped contests to several top teams, including current no. 2 nationally Williams College and Division 1 College of William and Mary.

Next year, Vassar will return five players who averaged over 20 minutes per game, including starters Jon Herzog ’13 and Donnelly.

Rounding out that group are Whitney, McGraw and guard Nick Justiz ’12. McGraw (16.9 points per game [ppg]), Donnelly (10.0 ppg) and departing Casey Black ’10 (11.4 ppg) all averaged in double figures for the Brewers.

The women’s basketball team recently completed one of the most successful seasons in the program’s history. The team’s five Liberty League wins are tied for the most in school history with those of the 2000-2001 team. It is also the most wins overall in a single season since that year.

This season, the Brewers were led by Emily Haeuser ’10 (15.2 ppg, 8.5 rebounds per game), who departs Vassar with her name all over the College’s record books. Haeuser is now the school’s leader in rebounds (866), blocks (167) and fourth in points (1,273). In addition to Haeuser, Brittany Parks ’12 (13.9 ppg, 35.6 minutes per game [mpg]) and Kristyn Tempora ’12 (9.0 ppg, 31.9 mpg) as well as Tori Chaltain ’13 (34.2 mpg) were huge for the Brewers.

Like the men’s team, the women’s squad started off hot, winning two of their first three games, including a 95-89 track meet with Centenary College. However, for Vassar, the true accomplishments began in League play.

Vassar started off 2-0 in the Liberty League for the first time in program history, earning a win against eventual playoff team St. Lawrence University. In addition to this accomplishment, Vassar beat Union College for the first time in team history, achieving this feat, twice.

The women’s basketball team will return a very young, but experienced, group. Of the 10 members of this year’s roster, just one is graduating, and just one will be a senior next year, guard Carolyn Crampton ’11. Both of the team’s returning captains will be juniors next year, ensuring them two more years of play on Vassar’s courts. Meanwhile, this year’s six freshmen will be back next year with increased experience.

Of the Brewers nine conference losses, five were by single digits and two were in overtime, showing just how competitive Vassar was this year. Perhaps no games were more heartbreaking than the final two, a 58-52 defeat at the hands of Hamilton College and a 70-63 double overtime loss to William Smith College.

The Brewers entered their final weekend with a chance at the playoffs. Had Vassar beat Hamilton, they would need just one more win and a Hamilton loss to reach the Liberty League tournament; however, the Brewers could not quite overcome Hamilton dropping the game by six points.

Next season, each basketball team will graduate just one senior, although it will be a substantial absence for both. Still, the experience gained by all of the young Brewers this year will serve them years down the line as they compete on the court at the Athletics and Fitness Center.

SPORTS Volleyball takes invitational Page 20

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

The men’s volleyball team defeats Philadelphia Biblical University’s Crimson Eagles in their first match of the third annual Vassar Volleyball Invitational Tournament on Feb. 19 in the Walker Field House. The Brewers went on to win the Invitational for the third year in a row.

Andy Marmer

T

Sports Editor

his past weekend, the men’s volleyball team hosted their third annual Vassar Volleyball Invitational. For the third consecutive year, Vassar dominated the field and swept the tournament. In the championship match, the Brewers defeated Nazareth College 3-0 (34-32, 30-28, 30-16). Phil Tully ’10 led the way for Vassar, earning his second straight Vassar Invitational Most Valuable Player Award, and libero Christian La Du ’13 represented the Brewers on the All-Tournament team.

La Du was shocked by the award. He noted in an e-mailed statement, “All-Tournament hadn’t even crossed my mind. It wasn’t a goal, hope or anything. It was validating as a player to be recognized like that, especially considering the talent pool at the tournament.”

The Brewers entered the tournament coming off of a 3-0 (30-14, 30-14, 30-18) North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) Metro Division win over Sage College on Wednesday, Feb. 17. This contest was the lone break Vassar had between the Nazareth Tournament and Vassar’s own invitational.

The weekend started with a bang, as the first contest featured Vassar facing off with the Crimson Eagles of Philadelphia Biblical University’s potent offense, first in Division III in kills, led by PBU’s national leader, Justin Brubaker. Both squads featured ample firepower as the Brewers were paced by twotime All-American Tully, no. 7 in the nation in kills, and Evan Fredericksen ’11, no. 17 in the country in kills. Not to be outdone, Phila-

delphia Biblical featured two top-10 hitters in Brubaker and Leandro Dueck.

Expectations were high as the Crimson Eagles and Brewers dueled, and neither side disappointed. Philadelphia Biblical drew first blood behind seven Brubaker kills to take the first set 30-26. Following this defeat, Vassar dug both heels in and battled the no. 6 team tooth and nail. Despite a poor hitting performance from both sides in the second set, Vassar persevered 30-24.

In the next set, Vassar out-hit Division III’s top-hitting team, taking the third set, 30-28.

With the Brewers trailing 28-27, La Du made several acrobatic digs, to aid Vassar’s comeback effort in the set.

Down 2-1, Brubaker did all he could to even the score for his squad. The outside hitter notched 10 kills in the final set, but six Tully kills and five more from Fredericksen propelled Vassar to the 30-28 victory, giving the Brewers a 3-1 (26-30, 30-24, 30-28, 30-28) upset of no. 6 Philadelphia Biblical.

After the tightly fought contest, the Brewers didn’t get much rest, as it was right back to the court for a meeting with Johnson and Wales University, which Vassar ultimately won 3-1 (30-24, 30-22, 30-32, 30-16).

After day one, Vassar and Nazareth each led the way at 2-0, while Philadelphia Biblical trailed just behind at 1-1.

In their first match of the second day, Vassar cruised by Elms College 3-0 (30-14, 30-9, 30-0), with Elms forfeiting the last set. Meanwhile, Nazareth snuck by Philadelphia Biblical in five sets, setting up a winner-take-all

championship contest. The last time the two squads met, just eight days prior on Feb. 12, Nazareth emerged victorious 3-1. This time the match was very different than the last.

The first two sets were tight throughout, with Vassar earning wins in each. In both sets, Vassar came from behind late in the set: the first after trailing 28-24, the second when behind 23-20, going on runs to tie each. The first set was tied at 28 off an ace from Matt Elgin ‘13 and ultimately went to the Brewers when Tully knocked home a kill from the back. Elgin also played an important part in tying the second set, executing a beautiful block alongside John Konow ’13, who finished with 45 assists. The set was back and forth for the next 10 points before two consecutive Nazareth errors gave Vassar the set.

The third set also saw a close contest—that is until Andres Posada ’10 stepped behind the line to serve. Posada rattled off 10 consecutive serves to give the Brewers the 30-16 win and match sweep. Noted La Du about the tournament, “As a team, our competitiveness and poise were a huge step in the right direction. All three of our wins against [Philadelphia Biblical] and the first two sets against [Nazareth] were come-from-behind victories in which we didn’t fold under pressure, but stayed focused and were able to will ourselves on top.”

The Brewers will look to continue their winning ways on Saturday, continuing their defense of Kenyon Hall against rival Ramapo College in a match-up that will go a long way in determining the division champion.

February 25, 2010

Athlete scandals don’t ruin sports TRANSGRESSIONS continued from page 19 look at them today. Jordan’s brand is as strong as ever, and he’s on the verge of buying the Charlotte Bobcats, an NBA Team. Johnson remains in the public eye while his company, Magic Johnson Enterprises, continues to grow, presently valued at around $700 million. The fans love both of them, and their pasts have not once been talked about in the same way that Tiger Woods’ has been dragged through the dirt.

Why do we pretend like we care when athletes mess up, when really we don’t? If we really, passionately were offended by these men and women’s actions, then we never would let them back into our homes. But we still do. Even more sickeningly, we feel almost better about ourselves when we do care, like when former New York Knicks General Manager and Head Coach Isaiah Thomas stated this week that he was “ready to forgive Tiger,” as if that meant anything to anybody except Thomas, who now feels like he is a better person for it.

I don’t understand the moral cutoff that we have, whereby after a certain transgression we no longer worship the athlete as we always had in the past, but rather now smear him or her and put the athlete down.

If truly we were supporters, then shouldn’t we have been there for Tiger during this hard time, instead of expecting apologies? He didn’t cheat on me. I am not his wife, so why is he apologizing to me? If anything, I was the enforcer; I made him feel like a superstar, like the rules didn’t apply to him.

Take the example of Argentinean soccer superstar Diego Maradona, or the man of a million mistakes.

Maradona has been treated for cocaine addiction multiple times, has been divorced, has had alcohol abuse problems and, even today, he still owes the Italian government over $47.5 million in back taxes. Yet, through it all, Maradona remained a darling in Argentina and worldwide, as fans simply loved him. Today he is the manager of an underachieving Argentinean national team, but he is still adored. Why? Because people fell in love with him for his athletic feats, not his personal life, so when his personal life went astray people still loved him and supported him because the cause for their love had not been compromised.

Unfortunately, I don’t like Jordan because he’s a good father, and I don’t like Johnson because he’s a good husband, maybe I should, but, in reality, I love both of those guys for what they did on the basketball court. And because of that, I will always think of them as my heroes, and I will always watch old games and listen to what they say, and I would still do anything for just an autograph from these guys. In that same vein, it doesn’t make sense for fans to turn on Tiger Woods. So he messed up, who hasn’t? But don’t pretend like Woods somehow wronged you, he didn’t.

Don’t pretend like there is even a pretext in which he could wrong you, because there isn’t. Short of Woods turning out to be Milli Vanilli, and all his feats having been done by someone else, we, as fans of Woods the athlete, have no right to judge this man. All we can do is support him through this tough time, and any sort of apologies to us are completely uncalled for.

Despite season’s success, polo falls in Preliminary Tournament Molly Turpin

T

Senior Editor

on outdoor polo were pleasantly surprised and applauded the numerous good plays that were made.” However, “There were one or two bad ‘crosses,’ but there was also a lenient referee and they were overlooked.”

Today, the team is more overlooked by potential spectators rather than by referees, and Myers and Wambold hope to make the sport more of a presence on the Vassar campus. “It’s a really great sport to watch,” said Wambold.

“Maybe we’ll publicize games a little bit more and arrange to bring people.”

“We’re always interested in taking people,” Myers said. She went on to explain the team’s possible plans to host a tournament or larger event in the spring where many people from campus could come to learn about the game and enjoy watching it be played.

Currently in its 10th year as a club sport at the College, the team began in 2001 and has picked up steam ever since. “The team has continued to improve each year,” wrote polo Coach Duncan Huyler in an e-mailed statement.

Generating more and more interest as the years go on, Vassar polo is on track to be a serious force in intercollegiate polo and is certainly a team to watch at Vassar.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Image courtest of Duncan Huyler

he Vassar women’s polo team hoped for their particularly successful season to culminate in a trip to the Northeast Intercollegiate Regional Tournament, to be held at Cornell University on March 12-14. The team stands at 2-7 for the season, and has so far beaten such formidable opponents as Yale University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass).

Before making it to the regional tournament, however, the team needed to secure their spot by winning the Northeast Preliminary Intercollegiate tournament hosted by The University of Connecticut February 20th and 21st.

Unfortunately, the goal of making it to the regional tournament was cut short, and despite well-founded hopes, the Brewers fell 21-4 in their first match against UMass on Feb. 20.

Having already beaten UMass and Yale University in their regular season, the team went into the preliminary tournament, which also included Johnson and Wales College, hopeful they could advance to the Regional Tournament. Eventual champion UMass proved to be a tough opponent.

“We played them a month ago, and we won, so it was kind of disappointing to play them again and lose,” said Marina Wambold ’12. “I really wanted to go to Regionals, but it was really nice to be there and be part of it.”

Though they did not make it through preregionals, the tournament was a highlight of a particularly active season. “Last year we weren’t nearly as competitive,” said Captain Kaylin Myers ’11, who happened to take home the Tournament Sportsmanship award from the preliminary tournament. “Playing as many games as possible is definitely the way to do it.”

Despite this being a particularly busy year, this was not the first foray into the sport in Vassar’s history. A New York Times article from Jan. 21, 1915, now on display in the National Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame, suggests that Vassar was on the cutting edge of collegiate women’s polo when several Vassar girls joined up with students from Bryn Mawr and Wellesley Colleges for a match in Central Park. The gathered students split into a red and a blue team for the game.

The article notes, “The women played a splendid game and many of the spectators who went there expecting to see a burlesque

The Vassar College women’s polo team competes in an intercollegiate match last spring.